Fragment
by bRokEN PuPPETxx
Summary: When 'The World' came online again three years after the events of Legend of the Twilight, Aura had disappeared...
1. Login to 'The World'

.hack/FRAGMENT 

Saya

* * *

version 1.0

**Login to 'The World'**

new topic posted 9.18.05

* * *

My name is Koto and though I did play a role in these events, I was not at the epicenter. I am not the heroine of our magnificent tale, only one who took part in it. I am the narrator, the storyteller who is supposed to know all and see all (though, hard as it may be to believe, I can do no such things).

Beginnings are just endings, and endings are beginnings. Everything is an ending or a beginning, even as I type this now my life is full of endings and beginnings. I begin taking a breath and I stop taking a breath to release it. Beginnings and endings…

But I suppose all tales of great adventures must begin somewhere (otherwise nothing would ever get done) so I'll begin by telling you what happened three years ago when the world was shut down…

Three years ago, the heroes Shugo and Rena fought for the sake of The World against a psycho AI that wished for nothing more than the deletion of Aura and the introduction of 'true death' to the game. CC Corporation, annoyed with all the events that had taken place linking to the Key of the Twilight, shut down the game and began to rebuild. They realized, much to their dismay, that in order to keep The World running properly they needed the existence of Aura. But while the game was offline, the mysterious girl caught a glimpse of the world outside of her own and longed for it until the day the game came back online and the CC Corporation discovered that Aura had disappeared…

* * *

Erika stepped out of the light of the golden Chaos Gate and looked at the town surrounding her. At first glance everything seemed perfect and beautiful, but when she looked closer she noticed the sad state of things. Everything was falling apart, the silver had been tarnished, she thought ruefully. Although she was new to The World (that makes it sound like it's the only one, doesn't it?) somehow she felt like she knew the place. The girl was more comfortable there than she had been at her real home.

Then again, people in the real world treated her strangely. Erika had amnesia (if she asks, I wasn't the one who told you). She had been wandering on the side of the road when they found her, when they took her in. Actually, just a few days ago one of her friends mentioned a popular game called 'The World,' which immediately piqued the girl's interest. That was why she was there now.

But when one started a new game such as that, weren't they supposed to choose their appearance? She logged on, chose her name, and then suddenly appeared in this strange new city with two blades strapped to her side and long, flowing white hair. Though her hair was different that real life, her face and eyes were exactly the same, but her clothes were a short white shirt that revealed her stomach and a long white skirt that, though it dragged across the ground behind her, never gathered dust.

"Aura!" she heard someone shout before two people stood in front of her. A Twin Blade and Heavy Blade by the looks of them… "What happened to you?" the Twin Blade asked. He had teal hair and wore strange, baggy orange clothing.

Erika pushed away from them, "I don't know what you're talking about. My name's Erika…E-ri-ka."

The female Heavy Blade looked at her closely and turned to the boy. "That isn't Aura, brother. They look alike but Aura didn't have any weapons. See? This girl's a Twin Blade."

"Eh?" the boy looked embarrassedly at the blades strapped to Erika's sides. "Sorry about that, you just looked like someone I know."

"If you ever need anything, send us an e-mail."

"Shugo and Rena," they said as they gave the girl their e-mail addresses and walked off toward the Chaos Gate before disappearing.

She had just started the playing the game and already she had met some strange people. She sincerely hoped this wouldn't be an omen of what her experiences would be like in the future… (unfortunately, it was). As soon as the two characters had disappeared through the swirling golden Chaos Gate, Erika found herself surrounded.

"You know Shugo and Rena?"

"Can you introduce me to them some time?"

"Does that mean you know Balmung and Wiseman and those guys?"

"How'd you design your character that way? They said you looked like Aura!"

"Erika!" the girl heard someone call her name and immediately she looked up as high as she could. The Twin Blade could not see the person that had called her, but she heard someone making their way through the mass. "Out of the way," the person said harshly, it sounded deep for a girl but too feminine for a guy. "Coming through…are you waving that sword at me? You'd better not be. Everyone, clear out of the way!"

A teenage girl (exuding confidence and shining with a beautiful brilliance unlike any seen before even within the confines of the game) broke through the crowd and stood beside Erika. She gave the girl an encouraging smile before placing her arm around Erika's thin shoulders. "Sorry I'm late, Eri-chan," she said to Erika but loudly enough so that the people around them could hear. "Hey, my friend's a newbie, she just started the game. I was a little late meeting her and if you all don't leave us alone I'm going to call in the Twilight Brigade."

At the word 'newbie' the people in the crowd started talking to each other. Without saying anything to the two girls in the center, the mass dispersed leaving Erika and this strange new girl. "Thank you, but how did you know my name?" the white-haired teenager asked as she ducked beneath the other's arm and out of reach.

The other girl laughed, it was a bright sound, and her chocolate brown eyes glittered. "Um…I heard you say it to Shugo and Rena before," she said after a moment's pause.

"What's a newbie?"

"It means you're new to the game… _new_bie. And before you ask how I knew that you were a newbie, it's because of a lot of things. One: you don't know who Shugo and Rena are, two: you don't know who Aura is, and three: your weapon sucks. If you had been playing even a few hours you'd have a better weapon than that."

Erika flushed only slightly and looked down with great interest at her bare feet, "You're right." The girl looked up and her clear blue eyes widened only slightly as she said, "You seem to know a whole lot about the game."

The other girl nodded, "Yes, I do," (modesty is a virtue that surprisingly not many people seem to exhibit) "but I'm a newbie, too. Just started an hour ago, to tell you the truth. I have a friend IRL, 'in real life,' who's really into the game." The last part came out as a rushed jumble, but Erika caught the gist of it. "What I'm really interested about, though, is your character design. I've never seen anything like it before."

"You like it?" the strange newcomer nodded, "I didn't think it up to tell you the truth. It just…came this way." The other girl's brows furrowed and she brought a gloved hand to her mouth, deep in thought. She muttered something incomprehensible and Erika didn't bother to ask what it was. "What's your name?"

The girl was startled out of her trance and as she jumped up the large blade attached to her back glinted menacingly in the artificial light. "Koto, I'm a Heavy Blade. It's pretty obvious you're a Twin Blade…Hey, since we're both new, why don't we make a party together?" Koto shook her head slightly to get a few unruly strands of her earlobe-length pure brown hair (that was unrivaled both in 'The World' and out) out of her eyes.

"Um…I guess so, I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing so I guess it'll be better to try it all out with a friend, right?" Erika grinned as they exchanged member addresses and she accepted the message that asked if she wanted to join Koto's party. "Alright, I'm ready," she said and the two girls disappeared at the Chaos Gate.


	2. Mysterious Message

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 2.0

**Mysterious Message: Leave While I'll Still Let You**

new topic posted 9.27.05

* * *

A young girl, seemingly fourteen or so years of age, collapsed onto her bed in an exhausted heap. She heard her mother call from down the stairs, "Erika! Do you want me to get you something to eat?" she asked.

Erika sighed and brushed her dark brown hair out of her eyes, "No thanks, Mom."

"Do you want to take a nap?" Normally that would have been insulting, seeing as how Erika was sixteen, even though she looked much younger than her age. No sixteen-year-old in the proper mind would take a nap in the middle of the day (or so they gave the impression considering how many teenagers really did seem to take mid-day naps).

The girl reluctantly sat up and looked over at her computer, debating something silently. Her 'mother' was just about to repeat the question when Erika replied, "No, I don't need to." She loved the woman dearly, she truly did, but sometimes she didn't want to be fawned over.

Although she was exhausted, Erika forced herself off the bed and trudged over to her computer where she immediately placed a headset over her eyes and entered 'The World.'

* * *

As soon as she logged on, a message appeared on her screen. 'One new mail,' it said. Erika didn't need to wonder who it was; it wasn't as if she had met all that many people in 'The World' since she had started playing the game just the day before. The girl checked her e-mail and when she opened up the message, an image of her friend's character appeared on the top left-hand corner of the screen. She could almost hear Koto's (incredibly beautiful, musical) voice as she read on. "What time zone are you in?" it asked.

Erika replied (you'd be surprised how slow a typist she is) and gated into the lovely and mysterious (though somewhat depressing due to its state of disrepair) city of Mac Anu. Almost as soon as she set foot inside the city, a message appeared on her screen, another new mail from Koto. Erika checked her e-mail, leaving her character to stand idly in the middle of the city's bustling streets. "Great, we're in the same zone. I thought as much, just wanted to make sure, especially since they've connected the servers from so many different parts of the world IRL. Anyway…how about we meet up? We can get you some experience, and hopefully a better weapon."

The white-haired Twin Blade stared at the message in amazement. All that in such a short period of time (I am an amazing typist, probably one of the fastest…yes, I know, I'm so annoyingly modest). Three words and the delta symbol hung at the bottom of the message which was apparently where Koto wanted to meet her. As quickly as she could, the girl gated out into the new area. She looked around for the Heavy Blade and was immediately tackled. Erika felt the wind knocked out of her as she hit the ground with her friend on top of her.

"Would you mind getting up?"

Koto stood and held out a hand for the other girl, "What? Am I that heavy? Just for that, I think I'll keep this awesome weapon I found just a little while ago…"

Erika pulled herself up (with her wonderful friend's help, of course) and brushed invisible dust off of her pure white outfit. Habit. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way…"

The Heavy Blade laughed, her chocolate brown eyes sparkling, "I know you didn't, I just like playing with you. You're too nice a person, it makes it so easy." The girl stuck out her tongue playfully and a pair of shining blades appeared in her hands: black blades that curved in slightly, elegantly, with silver hilts. Whenever she moved her hands, the blades left a trail of darkness in their paths.

"Those are the ones you were talking about? They're amazing, where did you get them?" Erika asked, examining the blades as they exchanged hands (that girl can be such a nut about stuff like that).

Koto shrugged uncomfortably and turned around, "Let's get going, the dungeon's over that way. Let's test those things out, though you might be too low a level to use some of the better moves they come with…"

Erika laughed; she hadn't even taken so much as one step into this new area because as soon as she had appeared she had been tackled by her friend. She ran forward but as soon as her right foot hit the ground, time in the game seemed to stop. A low ringing filled the girl's ears and the area blinked in and out of focus. "Hey! What's going on?" the Twin Blade called out to no one in particular, since her friend's character appeared unable to move.

"You shouldn't have come back," a sweet, menacing voice echoed above the noise. "You are no longer needed here, you should not have come back…I won't let you come back…" it sounded like a little girl, albeit a little girl who had just threatened the very existence of the character Erika was playing.

The area returned to normal and Koto looked over at her friend, "What the hell just happened? Everything just stopped and I couldn't hear or see anything…I couldn't move the character…I know it couldn't have been my computer. Mom got the best quality…" her voice trailed off as she brought a black gloved hand to her chin and thought (the hand-to-chin thing is a seriously annoying habit, if I do say so myself).

Erika looked over at her friend, "I don't know. What did that voice mean when it said all that stuff?"

The Heavy Blade's brown head looked up abruptly. Her eyes stared widely at her friend, a mix of fear and curiosity in those brown mirrors (Yes, I called my eyes mirrors, has anyone besides me heard of the whole 'mirrors to the soul' thing? Yes? Good…). "What voice? I didn't hear anything. I was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with my character…"

"Never mind, I guess I was just imagining things," the white-haired girl shrugged, seemingly knocking the thought off her shoulders. But inside, her mind was spinning with this new mystery.

Koto watched the other girl for a few moments before she said, "You know what, Erika? I think we're going to have to put this off for a while. Keep the blades, they're yours and don't tell anyone you got them from me if they ask. They're rare and I don't want people coming around asking me for stuff all the time…"

Erika nodded, she got the point. Both girls wanted, at that point, some time alone to think about the strangeness that had just occurred. Erika and Koto gated out, disbanded their party and went their separate ways (I logged out and Erika wandered aimlessly through the server's city). Maybe this was something the Twin Blade could ask those strange people from yesterday, Shugo and Rena, about. They were supposedly famous, so (supposedly) they should know a lot about the mysteries of 'The World.'

The white-haired Twin Blade sent a message and sat next to the city's main bridge, next to its clear, sparkling water (though the water was, at the time, no longer pure and clear but slightly dirty and not at all desirable to swim through). A few minutes later she received the reply she was waiting for, a message from the Twin Blade, Shugo. "There's a great area we can meet in, Rena and I want to hear a little more about this…" Once again, at the bottom of a message the keywords to an area were written: delta Hidden, Forbidden, Sacred.

Erika jumped up, she had previously been laying on her back with her hands cushioning her head and her blades resting at her sides, and made her way through the traffic to the Chaos Gate. Ever since the game's servers from different countries had been connected, traffic had become much heavier, but it was interesting to listen to all those different languages floating around her (very few people find enjoyment in listening to people talk in a language they don't understand).

The white-haired girl looked around her at the strange area. It was like a floating cathedral, surrounded by nothing but sky. Erika looked over the edge of the bridge (for lack of a better word) for the ground below her, but couldn't find anything. Instead she listened to the eerie music playing around her as she made her way inside the intimidating, yet beautiful, building.

The first thing Erika saw when she opened the large doors into the magnificent cathedral was a statue of a young girl in the center of the room with a black fence around her to keep people from getting too close, and chains wrapping around her and binding her to the wall. She stepped as close to the statue as she could and reached out for the young girl's stone face, she looked so sad and so familiar. But she couldn't quite place where she had seen that face before.

"You're here already?" Erika jumped and turned around to look at the speaker. Shugo and Rena stood silhouetted in the doorway; they seemed pretty impressive in that sort of light. "We're late and we're the ones that asked you to come…"

Erika grinned, "It's alright. Do you know who this girl is?" she asked. Shugo and Rena shook their heads, but the blue-eyed Twin Blade had the impression that they thought they knew (although how one can get the impression of things that the person him or herself doesn't know is beyond me).

The two of them stepped into the cathedral and the teenager noticed a third person standing behind them. He was lovely (as most characters in the game are) with a feminine face, white hair, blue eyes, silver armor, and long, elegant white wings. "I hope you don't mind that we brought him along. Balmung might know more about what's going on than we do."

Balmung…where had she heard that name before? "Nice to meet you," common courtesy dictated that Erika say something along those lines (but who nowadays follows common courtesy?). Blamung gave a graceful bow before looking at the statue that had held Erika's attention just moments before. The girl didn't bother asking if he knew who that poor statue was, she could see in his eyes that he did, and that he didn't want to talk about it.

"What exactly is the problem?" Shugo asked.

Rena smacked him playfully on the head, "Didn't you read her e-mail, big brother?"

The boy flushed slightly and looked only fairly embarrassed, "No…" His companions smiled knowingly, judging from their reactions the boy apparently did that sort of thing quite often.

The three of them looked expectantly at Erika, who was becoming nervous with all the attention being paid her. "Well, my friend and I went to this one area but as soon as I took a step the screen starting blipping," (what a wonderful word…) "in and out and I heard this really weird buzzing noise. Then this girl's voice came out and said something like 'you shouldn't be here.' But when it was over, my friend didn't hear the voice. Do you know what that means?"

The newcomers exchanged glances before Balmung spoke; he had a deep, soothing voice that made Erika want to smile. "Could Aura have been contacting her?"

"Aura disappeared when they reprogrammed the game," Rena answered. "Maybe it was a glitch in the game?"

"Or maybe it was a special character event…I mean, it does look like she has a special contest character or something…"

Rena grinned at her brother and placed her hands at her hips, Balmung, too, gave the boy a strange look. "That's what you thought last time, Shugo," Rena said warningly. Once again the boy flushed, but he did not pursue the subject. "I'm sorry we couldn't help you more," the girl said apologetically to the other.

Balmung looked at her oddly and Erika couldn't help but squirm uncomfortably beneath that gaze. "You probably shouldn't tell the Twilight Brigade or the CC Corp…" (not that Erika had any idea what he was talking about). The three of them walked out of the cathedral, leaving the white-haired Twin Blade behind to watch the unmoving statue that had so completely caught her entire interest.


	3. Meeting Death in the Face

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 3.0

**Meeting Death in the Face**

new topic posted 10.9.05

* * *

Erika sat beside the bridge and stared out at the water. Lovely though it was, there was still that hint of the beauty it had lost, the slight state of decay that was omnipresent throughout 'The World.' She ran a pale, delicate hand through the water and reveled in the shivers it sent down her spine (although, running one's hands through dirty water, real or virtual, is never a very smart thing to do). She was thinking about the statue in that strange place that she had met Balmung, Shugo, and Rena a few days before. That poor girl; bound and caught in chains and even though she wasn't real, Erika couldn't help but feel a pang in her chest every time she thought of that beautifully carved face. It looked so familiar, but so different at the same time.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the voice of a young man spoke so suddenly that the Twin Blade jumped a little and withdrew her hands from the water (finally, someone tells her that she shouldn't be playing with the water, I only wish it could have been me). "It probably isn't all that great for your character, for all we know it could have a virus in it or something."

Erika looked up and saw a tall young man, fairly feminine in face and build, leaning against a long spear-like weapon with its tip dug into the ground. "Really? Would it really mess with my character?"

The boy laughed, a nice, calming sound. "Maybe, no one's gone near the water in any of the cities since the game was rebooted. I used to play before all of that stuff happened, it's kind of sad to see how 'The World' has gone down hill since Aura disappeared."

"It's still beautiful..." He looked at her strangely and laughed, Erika blushed. Was it really that funny? Or was she showing her naivety concerning the goings-on of 'The World.'

"I guess it is…You know, you're a really interesting person," Erika smiled but didn't know what to say. She never knew what to say when people complimented her (I on the other hand accept such compliments with such humility…). "You're new, right? How about I show you this great area, hardly anyone ever goes there so you don't have to worry about people making fun of you if you die. I know that's why a lot of newbies tend to not level up very well."

The girl smiled and pushed a wisp of unnatural white hair out of her crystal blue eyes. "Alright, are you going to form the party?" He shook his head, "Do you want me to?" he shook his head again, "Then what are you planning, for us to just meet there?"

"Sounds good," the boy replied, a white smile spreading across his dark, tanned face (what a weird guy). As soon as he gave Erika the keywords, he walked away and disappeared at the Chaos Gate.

Erika sighed and stood up, everyone she met so far in 'The World' had turned out being strange (everyone except the amazing and wonderful Koto!). She walked over to the Chaos Gate and disappeared in a spiral of golden light.

* * *

The silver-haired girl appeared in the middle of a beautiful meadow and a gust of wind blew through her hair and clothes. "Hey!" she called to the boy that had invited her. "Hey, where are you?" she hadn't even bothered to ask him his name. She would have to when she found him.

After a few moments, the boy appeared, his dark hair blowing into his equally dark eyes. Everything about him was dark, almost as if he was trying to hide, to remain anonymous. "I was looking everywhere for you!"

"And I was watching you destroy those monsters that got in your way. You're pretty good."

Erika smiled, her blue eyes sparkling happily from the compliment, "Thank you. It's because of this friend I made online. She keeps getting better and better and I've been staying the same…"

"So you've been training on your own for a while?" Erika nodded, "I understand completely. It's usually a lot better to train alone."

"Is that why you didn't want to join a party?"

The strange boy smiled almost satanically and shook his head. "Because I am Death…" (come on, man, you couldn't think of something more creative?) "the Player Killer known as Death…"

The teenager's blue eyes widened, a Player Killer? She had enough passing knowledge of the game to understand that Player Killers were usually very high levels and that when they killed another player, it messed with their experience points. "A…a player killer?" It was a natural reaction, whenever she was nervous, Erika tended to repeat things that had already been said.

After all that work, having a player killer come by, target _her_ of all people, and get rid of the experience points she was building to get to the next level! The boy—Death—nodded, apparently pleased by the girl's reaction. "I guess you'd better run."

Erika stared a moment but did not move. After a while she finally said, "There wouldn't be much of a point. I'd have no chance of beating you in a fight, and I don't have much of a chance of running away. Long Arms are usually some of the faster characters, right?

Death laughed (it sounds so creepy to say that, doesn't it?) a cool, calming sound, all things considered. "You know what? You're pretty interesting, I like you. And trust me, that's a good thing. I'm not very nice to the people I don't like," (yeah? And threatening to kill a person's character is nice?) "How about you and I start a party, I can help you level up…"

"I was actually waiting for Balmung to come on, he promised to help me, but he's late. So, sure. Let's start a party!" she replied enthusiastically, not fully comprehending the power in casually mentioning the name of Balmung of the Azure Sky.

It felt nice to have another new name in her directory. Meeting someone new, it felt like making a new friend. "I'm surprised," Death said after a moment of silence that had settled on them when they had formed their party, "I tried to kill your character, but you aren't mad. You would have let me."

Erika shrugged, "Like I said, I didn't have a chance of saving her, right? You probably could have killed me before I could gate out. But look at it this way, I'm friends with Death himself," the two of them laughed as they made their way down the field's hill and towards a glowing gate.


	4. Rainy Season

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 4.0

**Rainy Season**

new topic posted 10.16.05

* * *

Erika spun around and her twoblack blades slashed through the monsters, within a few moments they disappeared and a blue treasure box stood in front of her. The girl shuffled through her items for something to open the box and sighed disappointedly at what she saw when she managed to complete the task.

"I'm surprised there's someone else here," said a loud, commanding voice behind her (and did I mention obnoxious? It wouldn't be a proper description without the word 'obnoxious'). The Twin Blade spun around, her weapons held defensively in front of her as she turned to face the speaker. Experience with Death dictated, 'always be on your guard,' the boy loved to see how she'd react if he tried to attack her. (That girl has strange taste in friends, me not included, of course.)

She widened her blue eyes and let her hands fall to her sides when she saw who it was. An apologetic smile materialized across her face as she said, "I'm sorry. Um, who are you?" Erika pushed a wet strand of white hair out of her eyes, she loved the rain dearly but it was a slight inconvenience when one was trying not to be killed by random monsters, ones that specialized in water no less. (But what else would the case be in a water area?)

The speaker was a tall girl (although she was slightly hunched over—what horrible posture!—she still towered over our pint-sized heroine) with short, chocolate brown hair and coffee colored eyes (I'm so hungry). Her outfit was fairly earthy: dull brown boots, a light brown top with sleeves that hung loose, a brown skirt, silver hoops around her neck and a staff at her side with a green gem floating near the top, suspended by the air. "My name's Amaya and you are in my private haven…"

Erika looked at her oddly, she had been playing the game long enough to know that one could not claim an area, though some were not officially claimed. Was this one of those areas? No, someone would have warned her. "My name's Erika," not that the other girl had asked. "I'm sorry to be bothering you, Amaya. I was just trying to get a little training done before I met with my friend tomorrow to take on an event" (one of many events that I force Erika to come with me on).

"It's alright," the other girl said as she sat down, "I just like it here is all. Most people don't so I was a little surprised."

"Why wouldn't most people like it? It's beautiful!"

Amaya shrugged as she placed her staff down lovingly on the ground beside her. "You can sit if you'd like." (Translation: "Sit down, now or I'll smack you to the next dimension!") But Erika remained standing as the rain soaked through her clothes. The Wave Master, as our heroine assumed she was, glared through her dark eyes, accentuated by the rain as it fell against her face and hair and reflected what limited light there was. "Sit down." The Twin Blade uttered a strange cry (something like "meep!") and immediately sat down beside Amaya. "It is beautiful, isn't it?" Without waiting for an answer she continued on that vein, "I love the rain, it just washes everything away. It magnifies the light and makes everything look so…" she couldn't think of the word.

"Ethereal?" Erika offered and the other girl nodded.

"Yeah, ethereal," the Wave Master continued nodding. She was about to say something more when Erika jumped up and slashed at a monster that had snuck up behind them while they spoke. Amaya twisted around but managed only to look foolish and fall over. "Wow. As thanks take my member address," she used her staff to pull herself up off the ground and wiped dirt and dust off her clothes. "Call me whenever you need a Wave Master!" All things considered, Erika assumed the other girl would run off in the other direction. But instead, Amaya slumped away, slowly as if she was reluctant to leave and the only reason she was doing so was because her private spot was not so private any more.

Amaya, eh? Erika smiled to herself, another new friend. Amaya, what a pretty name. Just like the rain.


	5. Forbidden Zone

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 5.0

**Forbidden Zone**

new topic posted 10.24.05

* * *

"Darn it, Koto!" Erika slammed her fist against the desk as she checked her e-mail once more to make certain that she had the coordinates for the area her friend had asked to meet were correct (of course they were correct, I take that as a personal insult). The teenager sent a mail to the other player, asking about the area.

Within a matter of seconds she received a reply (I pride myself in my typing ability, and my writing ability, and my ability in the game, and my…the list goes on forever, I'm a very talented person). "Of course those were the right coordinates. Meet me in front of the Chaos Gate, Mac Anu as usual."

Erika sighed and logged onto the world once more to find the brunette already waiting for her, leaning against the large sword common to her character's class. "I forgot that you can't get in…" the Heavy Blade said, not even the slightest bit apologetically (it wasn't as if I had anything to apologize for).

The white-haired Twin Blade shook her head, "Then why in the world," (bad pun), "did you ask me to meet you there if we can't get in?"

Koto clicked her tongue and waved a finger in front of her friend's face, "I said _you_ can't get in. I can. My…uh…acquaintance IRL told me about the area and how to get in."

"If it's blocked off, it's that way for a reason!"

"Fool!" the other player shook her head and her next words were spoken as if she was explaining the obvious to a small child who didn't understand it yet (I swear, that was what it felt like). "No one ever becomes famous by just playing by the rules. If you want excitement you've got to bend them a little, and besides, it isn't as if we're breaking them, just bending. Bending…"

Erika smiled, "Oh yeah? We're going into an area that's blocked off. I think that accounts for blatantly breaking the rules," she stressed those last few words but the other teenager merely shrugged having already lost interest in the discussion at hand. "Fine, start a party so I can come with you."

Koto smiled, she knew it was only a matter of time before the Twin Blade saw things her way and within a few seconds they were in a party together and the brunette was playing around with the Chaos Gate in ways that Erika didn't even bother trying to understand.

When the two girls appeared on the field surrounded by spirals of golden light that evaporated they immediately went into defensive positions. "It's a good thing we've both been leveling up," Koto said, but her voice was fuzzy and the area faded in and out of focus around them. "What a weird place…"

Yeah, weird indeed; it was like that one area where Erika had heard the strange voice what seemed like so long ago but was in reality only a few months back. "You aren't welcome here anymore," it was the voice the Twin Blade had been waiting for the moment the area started fizzing (for lack of a better term). She immediately looked over at Koto, but her friend didn't seem to have heard it, or if she had she was pretending she hadn't. Erika didn't bother to say anything; she assumed it would only result in the same answer she had received last time. Instead, she chose to ignore it, store it in her memory. She would ask Shugo and Rena about it later.

Just as the screen fizzed, the background music for fights started playing, echoing in Erika's ears. Both girls turned around to find where the monster was, it wasn't too difficult to find. But it was different from anything they had ever seen before. It was an ordinary monster, but streams of data were coming off of it (or maybe they were gathering towards it?) and there were patches of purple that in all likelihood should not have been there. Erika ran towards it and spun around so that her blades slashed through the monster's 'skin' over and over.

But every time the girl opened a wound, it closed up in the blink of an eye. Finally realizing that she was having no effect on it, the Twin Blade jumped back and watched as Koto continued to hack away at the beast (what can I say, I'm persistent). From where she stood, Erika used healing spells on her friend until the monster the Heavy Blade was attacking suddenly vanished.

"Where the hell did it go?" Koto shouted, since her other party member had gone a good distance away.

The Twin Blade shrugged her shoulders and tossed her long white hair over her shoulders. "No clue!" she shouted back, but before she could finish the screen started going black. Erika switched her field of vision from first person so that she could see what happened. The monster had appeared behind her character and ran her through the stomach with its long talons.

It was the first time Erika would be dying in the game, at least it was a new experience and Koto could always bring her back. Even though the girl was greatly disappointed with the fact that she would be losing all those experience points…the colors on the computer's screen started to swirl and meld like a broken kaleidoscope and suddenly the area came into focus again. Strange…

The girl looked around, the monster was evaporating and her character was completely fine. What was going on? Koto ran up to her and the Heavy Blade's eyes held the same question. Erika changed her view back to her preferred first person to watch the monster evaporate into clumps of data that floated into the air and slowly disappeared. "Thanks for resurrecting me," the Twin Blade said, checking her experience points and preparing to mourn over the loss of them.

"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything, I just saw that thing kill you and I came over here because I was out of range to use my items but then you just came back into focus that that thing started screaming. And now it's gone…" her face was thoughtful when she was finished. Which was a good thing in this case because Erika had a lot to think about as well: that voice, and now this? Why was it that strange things always seemed to happen to her when she was with Koto? Was it the other player that was doing this? No, from the surprise on the other girl's face it didn't seem so.

A message appeared on Erika's screen…a file with a strange name (one that was much too long to remember, not that I cared to at the time). "Weird…I just got this completely random file…" the Twin Blade's voice trailed off as the girl typed away at her computer in an attempt to read it, but it refused to open for her.

"Really…? That's odd," a thoughtful expression once again crossed Koto's face but it disappeared in a matter of moments. "Maybe we should head back," back to Mac Anu (or the 'City of the Sea' as Erika likes to call it). Together the two girls exited the strange area and entered an even stranger one, or so it seemed.

The city they entered was in chaos; people were running in every which way, including NPC's, it was rare to see non-player characters out of the shops and running on the streets. A few characters stood atop the bridge in the distance while others stood on a fleet of gondolas that littered the water flowing beneath it. They were too far away, though, for either Erika or Koto to see their features clearly, but it was obvious who they were.

"Twilight Brigade…" Koto murmured, her voice venomous (hey, if you knew them the way I do then you'd understand why I hate them).

The tone of the Heavy Blade's voice caused someone to stop and stare; most people did not hold such contempt for the keepers of the law in 'The World.' "Um, what's going on?" Erika decided to try and take the poor stranger's attention away from her strange friend's reaction. The blue-eyed teenager would ask about it later, but now was not the time.

The other player's eyes remained suspiciously on Koto when he answered, "CC Corp's evacuating the game. From the sound of it, they lost an important file." Luckily, the player ran off toward the Chaos Gate before he got the chance to see the suspicious look exchanged between the two girls.

"Give me the thing we found," the brunette couldn't say 'file' for fear of being overheard. As quickly as she could, so as to have less of a chance of finding out, Erika handed the file over. "I'll contact you as soon as I figure out what's on this."

"What? Shouldn't we give it back?"

"Not until we find out why it's so important first. If we found it, it means we were meant to…" Or at least, Erika was.


	6. Aura Lost Above the Sky

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 6.0

**Aura Lost Above the Sky**

new topic posted 11.3.05

* * *

The young, dark-haired teenager that was Erika IRL, sat firmly planted in her chair while her mother's voice called to her from the first floor. "I'm going to use the computer!" the girl yelled after a moment, she wasn't listening to anything her mother was saying as things were, so it wasn't as if she would be missing anything (come now, you can't tell me you hadn't zoned out during a parental lecture before).

Almost as soon as Erika logged in, a message for a new e-mail appeared on her screen: it was from Koto. "I spent all night deciphering the coding on that thing, you'd better be grateful. I haven't seen something that complicated in a long time, but it's really odd. It doesn't really do much, I'll start the program and my screen just goes fuzzy and some muffled sound comes through the speakers. Sent an item with the e-mail, 'The World' is still down so use it to get in. Meet me at the place you said you met with Shugo, Balmung, and Rena a while ago."

The teenage girl sighed and pulled her long, dark hair back into a loose bun at the back of her head, so as to keep it out of the way while she placed the headpiece required for the game over her eyes. Slowly, almost tentatively, Erika directed her mouse toward the object included in her friend's e-mail and clicked on it.

* * *

Instantly, the screen became a swirl of light and color and Erika found herself standing in the middle of the church, the statue of the girl in chains behind her. The brown-haired, brown-eyed Heavy Blade that the white-haired character had come to know so well over their brief time as friends stood up abruptly from her place seated on one of the benches that lined the cathedral walls in rows.

"Took you long enough, come on!" Koto ran over to the Twin blade and grabbed her wrist, dragging the blue-eyed girl down the aisle. "If we stay here for too long we might get caught. I know how to get to a place that no one will be able to trace…"

Erika leaned her weight back, stopping her friend from dragging the girl off the edge of the bridge that seemed to just break off into nothing. This was the only area of 'The World' that actually had an end. "First, there's something I want you to explain to me." The brunette looked at the other player oddly, almost nervously, but that did not seem possible considering who it was (I'm allowed to be nervous once in a while, aren't I?). "What exactly are you? You aren't a normal player, I can tell that much…"

The Heavy Blade laughed, not her usual laugh though, it was an almost ugly sound (I resent that and I'm the one who wrote it!). "You're right, I'm not," she said with an undercurrent of smooth cunning and confidence that Erika had never noticed before. "I'm the one and only daughter of the infamous hacker, Helba," the white-haired girl gasped. Of course she had heard the name before, especially considering how long she had been playing now. Everyone had heard the name of Helba the hacker, the mysterious woman in white whose face remains always unknown and is rumored to have taken part in every event involving the mysterious 'Key of the Twilight' in the game. That information would have to be confirmed by Balmung and Shugo, of course, but still…

Erika had been expecting something odd, but she had certainly not been expecting her friend to say anything like that. "I'm a hacker as well," that was certainly a give-in. "Does that answer your questions?" Koto asked, her voice and visage returning to normal now that the moment was passed. The Twin Blade nodded her head, unable to speak, and allowed herself to be dragged almost to the edge of the bridge.

Just as it appeared that the two girls would fall off the broken, jagged ledge, a strange, darker kind of Chaos Gate appeared before them, swirling serenely as if there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. The brunette dragged her friend through the intimidating swirl of darkness and they found themselves in an area that looked just as broken as the edge of the bridge. "Welcome to the Net Slums," Koto said proudly as she waved at someone walking by with a television screen on his shoulders rather than a head.

The buildings were falling apart and the sky looked as if the programming running it was still incomplete…in fact, everything about this place looked as if it was still incomplete, a work in progress to say the least (the Net Slums are wonderful if you really look at the place closely enough, not that many people really care to). Koto lead the Twin Blade to an empty alley, not that Erika could be sure considering how the player characters looked as if they had just come out of the scrap heap, and said, "No one will be able to find us here. Grab a look at this, though…"

The hacker sent the file that the two girls had found the previous day over to Erika who double clicked it as soon as the opportunity arose. Rather than what she had been expecting (the fuzzy screen and muffled voice I'd told her about) the character froze and a kind of movie played in the middle of the screen. "What's going on? I can't move!" Erika heard Koto yell, but her voice was softer, quieter than normal, as if the game was trying to muffle her so that they could hear the movie more easily.

* * *

The movie played as if it was a recording from a camera seated atop a computer, but the camera seemed almost alive in the way it moved and reacted to the movements of the people it was watching. Two men were alone in a dimly lit room (though that may have just been that dratted camera). One was seated, his legs crossed over each other and his head resting in his one hand as the elbow dug into his thigh. The man was clearly oriental as his dark eyes regarded his companion who stood, seemingly outraged, in front of him.

This other man was clearly not oriental, with his platinum blond hair that shone almost white in the limited lighting that shone through the cracks in the closed blinds. Though his curled blond hair stood out against the seated man's own short, gelled black hair, their brown eyes were almost exactly the same (odd, really). The oriental man spoke calmly from where he was seated, his voice was so level that it sent shivers down Erika's spine (you try listening to that and not imagining the guy showing up at a grocery store and just exploding and pulling out a gun someday…).

"I assume our temporary replacement is almost complete. The game is due back online in a matter of days, we need her until we can relocate Aura…"

The blond man's fists were clenched at his side, "Not completed, Sky will never be complete. She will continue to grow along with 'The World.'"

"You sound as if you expect Sky to become permanent," the oriental man regarded his companion coolly, "remember what her sole purpose is. She is merely a temporary replacement…I'd like you to keep me informed on Sky's progress. I do apologize but I have a meeting I must attend with one of the many men I have searching for Aura" (what a liar, there wasn't even the slightest bit of regret in his voice, then again I probably have no right to talk about liars).

The blond watched with contempt in his brown eyes as the oriental man pushed himself out of his desk chair and sauntered past him out the door. "I don't expect her to become permanent. She _will_ become permanent…"

* * *

The screen went temporarily black once more and both girls found themselves once again in full control of their characters. "Please tell me you saw that, too…" Erika pleaded, after all whenever she had heard that strange voice, Koto had not. Maybe this video clip had been something like that.

Koto stared stupidly at her companion, her brown eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. The Twin Blade wondered for only a brief moment how the other girl managed to get that expression, then she remembered the 'hacker' status. "I saw it. But I don't get it…whenever I tried starting up that program nothing happened, now all of a sudden it works…" her voice trailed off and the teenager looked curiously at Erika.

"What?" the white-haired, blue-eyed teenager asked, slightly annoyed. Koto never told her anything that was on her mind, and that was starting to get on the girl's nerves.

The Heavy Blade shook her head, her short brown hair smacking the sides of her face and whipping into her equally brown eyes. "Maybe it's because _you_ opened it this time," at least Koto announced her thoughts aloud rather than keeping them inside, not that the thoughts were very comforting ones on Erika's part anyway. "Never mind, but you know we can't tell anyone about this, right?"

"Can't we give back the file to CC Corp?"

"No way! One look and they'll be able to tell that we decoded it and watched. We can't tell anyone. That includes Balmung, Shugo, Rena, or any other random person you might me in the game or anywhere else. Got it?"

Erika shrugged her shoulders but the look in her eyes was serious when she replied, "Alright." That was all they needed to ensure that the more-than-a-little-bit-confusing information they had just discovered remained secret.


	7. Shadow of the Twilight

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 7.0

**Shadow of the Twilight**

new topic posted 11.8.05

* * *

Erika walked out the door to her school, holding her book bag at her side. "Hey, have you heard?" one of her friends asked excitedly.

The dark-haired teenager gave a sigh, "Depends…" she had heard a lot of things, but she didn't know what her friend was talking about.

The other girl sighed and shook her head sadly, "You are so deprived…so uninformed, poor dear," she slung her arm around Erika's shoulder and leaned her head against the top of the shorter girl's. Erika gave her friend a glare, not that the other girl noticed at all anyway. "Supposedly, 'The World' came back online today. Man, I wish we didn't have school. I've been itching to get back for weeks!" Weeks…that was how long it had been since Erika and Koto had watched that odd video, since they had deciphered the encryption on CC Corp's missing file.

The teenager made her way home quickly and dropped her bag onto the ground beside her 'bed' (which was really the couch) before making her way up to her room and turning on the computer. Surely enough, when she clicked the icon that would open up the program for 'The World' it brought her to her main screen. The girl pulled the headpiece over her eyes, not even bothering to pull her dark hair back in it's usual comfortably loose bun.

As soon as Erika logged on a message appeared on her desktop, another new e-mail. Almost dreading what Koto would have to say, she clicked it open and was surprised, and a little bit relieved, to see that it wasn't from the Heavy Blade (come on, you know you love me). Instead the message was from the Wave Master Amaya with whom Erika had had little conversation lately. 

"Hey, I've just got inside information that in order to celebrate 'The World' coming back online there's going to be a special Wave Master event. Would you mind giving me a hand?"

Erika grinned, of course Amaya would know whenshe was online. The other PC, player character, had specifically asked for schedules and time zone information. "Sure," the girl typed in reply, "I'll meet you in Mac Anu," it was her favorite city in her favorite server (mine too, for that matter).

* * *

A reply popped onto the screen almost as soon as the white-haired, blue eyed, white-clad Twin Blade set foot inside the city of water. "I'm bringing another friend along, too. She's really good, hope you don't mind!" Not a question, just a statement. That wasn't something she would have expected from Amaya, Koto maybe, but certainly not the reserved Wave Master.

Erika leaned against the fence of the Grunty stables (I've always preferred Puchiguso because it sounds so much cuter, it fits!) and waited for the Wave Master and her mysterious new friend. She did not have long to wait. "Hey! Erika!"

The Twin Blade turned around and pushed a strand of her long white hair behind her delicate ears as Amaya walked down the street toward her, her hand half-way into the air and waving self-consciously (reason one I don't get along with her very well). "This is Claire," the brown haired character announced when they were within a few feet of Erika.

"Nice to meet you," said the girl standing next to Amaya. She stood in stark contrast with the other girl. Whereas Amaya was a plain brunette with plain eyes, nothing extraordinary about her in any way really, Claire had brilliant blonde hair and captivating blue eyes that seemed to blend into green and back, like the sea on a stormy day. She was tall and thin, but not so thin as to be considered unattractive, with soft skin that was neither tanned nor pale.

Aside from her general appearance, though, she gave the impression of being a captivating person, not just as a character in the game. This strange girl had the look of a teenager, but also the look of a custom character. She wore what looked like a black corset, but was made of cloth and much too loose to be considered so, over a loose white collared shirt and white pants with what appeared to be the entire work of Romeo and Juliet written in different styles and different colors going down her pant legs (that was probably too much description but I just love those pants!).

Claire, as Amaya said her name was, held herself tall and straight. She had an intelligent face and seemed dignified in a way that Amaya tried to be. While Amaya always considered herself mature (reason two we don't get along) this new girl actually did seem mature as her black gloved hand rested against the hilt of the sword strapped to her side.

"Nice to meet you, too," Erika said sweetly, her usual smile playing on her lips. Just as she was summing up the other girl's character with a simple glance, so it seemed Claire was doing the same to her. Both girls laughed as if there was some sort of inner joke between them, but merely it was because they both knew exactly what the other was doing. Meanwhile, Amaya turned her head from one friend to the other, trying to figure out what was going on.

Getting nowhere at all, and feeling a little left out, Amaya spoke up and interrupted the round of odd laughter, "Let's get going!" she said eagerly. Within a few moments Erika received an invitation to join Amaya's party, which she quickly accepted. "Where did you say it was, Claire?"

The new girl, a Blade Master by all appearances, told her friend the coordinates while the three made their way through the throng of excited players and to the Chaos Gate. The Wave Master punched in the coordinates and they disappeared into the spiraling golden light that somehow gave Erika the impression of being warm and inviting.

Another player character was standing exactly where they gated into the new area and he spoke to the group before Erika even got a chance to get a look at her surroundings. "I'm sorry, but the event isn't up yet, we seem to have a bug—" He stopped mid-sentence when Claire gave a little nod and said no more as the group walked past.

"What was that about?" Erika asked, looking back at the man they had just passed as they continued walking forward.

Amaya and Claire exchanged a glance that went by unnoticed by their companion (Erika, you naïve, ignorant fool) and the Blade Master merely said, "Just forget about it." And so the Twin Blade did so, without much effort, I must say.

The area was certainly an interesting one, it was more like an entire dungeon, but not a dungeon (I have such a way with words). Each section of the area was closed off, separated from the others except by means of dual exits and entrances into and out of them, connection the ones that stood neighboring them. Within each section there were caves of varying sizes (and varying degrees of creepiness) that held a monster that had to be defeated.

Most monsters were immune to regular attacks, which certainly did seem very typical of Wave Master events. So, the three girls defeated their enemies with only slight difficulty (whenever a monster was defeated a treasure box appeared with a riddle that had to be solved before one could move on into the next area, did I not mention that little tidbit of completely useless information?). At least, it was simple until they got to the last area.

"This is it!" Amaya bounded forward into the cave. Claire and Erika were about to make their ways inside when the Wave Master ran back out, screaming (ha, ha…sucks for you).

"What happened?" Claire asked after exchanging worried looks, although they had only known each other for a matter of hours (that was how long it was taking them to finish this) they were already close friends. Such was Claire's extraordinary charisma (though not nearly as amazing as my own) and Erika's ability to make anyone feel relaxed.

Amaya took a deep breath, "There's something that goes completely against the system. They were right when they said there were still a few bugs to work out, there's a monster in there I've never seen before. I tried using a spell on it, but it didn't work!"

Erika shook her head, this sounded terribly familiar. She'd send an e-mail to Koto about it when they got back, but for now it seemed as if this was something that she had to defeat since it was she who defeated the last 'corrupted monster' as Koto had called it. "Alright, then…Erika and I will attack since your spells don't work. You can heal us from a distance…" Claire was taking control as if it was the most natural thing in the world to her, and it just seemed natural for Erika and Amaya to follow; another side effect of Claire's odd form of charisma.

The two blue-eyed girls unsheathed their blades and ran into the cave first with the third following as closely behind as the limitations on Wave Masters would allow. Despite herself, Erika let out a slight gasp. It was just like the last time, the monster appeared to be incomplete data, swirls of dark purple light like clouds of darkness covered patches were its skin should have been and streams of data flashed across the dark patches at random intervals.

Without a moment's hesitation, Claire had jumped forward and began fighting with the creature, though it was clear she was doing little to no damage whatsoever (fools!). The Twin Blade leapt into the action as well, though her attacks proved to have a different effect. The creature's hit points, its life, began to go down, slowly but they were decreasing nonetheless. Eventually, Erika delivered the last blow by jumping up and slashing at the creature with both of her blades trailing darkness as she fell back down.

The monster disappeared in a stream of data that floated through the ceiling of the cave to join the rest of the data that flowed throughout 'The World' and held the game together. "That doesn't make any sense," Claire said thoughtfully. Though her voice was quiet and she gave the impression of thinking aloud, it was all to clear to Erika that the statement was directed at her.

"You're right…but look! A treasure chest!" Amaya ran forward and the chest sprang open. "That's odd…" she equipped a new staff.

It was a deep red with black symbols spiraling down. In all, the staff was only slightly taller than Amaya herself (and she's pretty tall on the rare occasion that she isn't hunched forward a bit, reason three we don't get along very well, and if that reason was confusing then I'm glad because I don't understand it either). A black, thick crescent sat on top of it with an oddly shaped red gem floating in its center. "I've never seen anything like that," Claire said.

Erika did not say anything and instead her gaze fell to the two blades she held in her hands. In a lot of ways, they were like Amaya's new staff: the way they looked, surely, but also the feeling they gave off. "Are they authorized?" Amaya asked Claire jokingly and the Twin Blade watched them confusedly through her large blue eyes.

Just when she was about to ask, however, the man from the beginning of the area sprinted towards them followed closely by two Heavy Axe-men that held almost identical appearances albeit the fact that they were clearly different genders. "Miss Claire!"

As soon as she caught sight of the other player, Claire's laid-back attitude was quickly replaced by one of the utmost poise and authority (its amazing how people can change like that, right before your eyes). "You've brought them with you. This is obviously something important."

"You don't need to act that way with us," said one of the Heavy Axe-men, the girl. Her short, curled red hair was tied in a tight ponytail at the back of her head and her blue eyes studied Erika, Amaya, and the new staff that Amaya had received.

The other of the would-be twins smiled, "Yeah, we've known you long enough to know what you're really like." But Claire didn't say anything in reply, instead her gaze shifted rather quickly from the Heavy Axe-men to the scared looking PC from earlier and back. Apparently, they understood (took them long enough, the idiots).

"Anyway," the red-headed girl went on, "you're right. It is important…"

"Hey, Claire?" Erika interrupted, unable to contain her silence any longer. "What's going on? Who are these people?"

The blonde smiled knowingly, yet kindly. "Didn't you know? We're the three founders of the Twilight Brigade…" she said simply, as if it was no big deal at all. "Sorry I have to leave you guys so suddenly," Claire certainly did sound apologetic when she said it, "I'll see you later, Amaya. Don't be a stranger, Erika!" and she walked out of the cave with the red heads, tailed by the now timid PC.


	8. The Sky Glows Angry Red

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 8.0

**The Sky Glows Angry Red**

new topic posted 11.14.05

* * *

Erika ran her hands through her long, white hair with her bright blue eyes closed in frustration. "I just don't get anything that's been going on!" She was sitting alone in a café, a new feature of the world since it had been brought back online after its long hiatus all those years ago. "And Koto said I'm not supposed to tell anyone else…but now there's Claire…"

She made an incomprehensible sound in her aggravation and messed up her hair before letting her hands drop to her side and resting her head on the small wooden table. People were starting to stare, not that Erika really cared at that point (when you're lost in thought, who cares what other people think of you?)

"You are the first person in 'The World' I've ever seen that needs a hairbrush…" Erika's head shot up and the girl scanned the room with her shining blue eyes. They rested on a seemingly young man with hair as white as the Twin Blade's and four long, white wings. His armor shone in the light as the door closed behind him and his two companions, a Twin Blade with aqua hair and a Heavy Blade with dark skin and light pink hair (in case you didn't get it they're Balmung, Shugo, and Rena).

"Balmung, Shugo, Rena!" Erika exclaimed, offering them a seat with her, though the table might have been only slightly too small (meaning, it was meant for two people max.). The three newcomers brought up chairs and sat with the white-clad Twin Blade. "How have you guys been?" she smiled, but the smile on her face was all too clearly fake.

Balmung looked at her oddly, but the other two didn't seem to notice. "Fine, fine. It's good to be back online again, though. Right, big brother?" Rena said, nudging Shugo with her elbow. The boy smiled sheepishly but didn't need to answer, everyone present agreed.

"That was really odd, though," Shugo said (meaning the game's hiatus). Erika squirmed but once again, the two siblings seemed not to have noticed while the winged Blade Master watched the white-haired girl closely with scrutinizing eyes. "When did you get back online, Erika? We just got back today…"

Erika shrugged, trying to appear nonplussed (and not surprisingly, failing completely) "When it first came back online. I have a friend who invited me for the Wave Master event…"

Shugo smiled a little, "I'll bet Mireille would have wanted to try that…"

"A chance for a rare item? Of course she would have," Balmung said, his eyes dancing with laughter and a smile on his lips. Erika and the others couldn't help but laughing at the comment. Shugo and Rena had introduced the white-haired Twin Blade to their (extremely odd) friend once for only a brief period of time until the other girl had to leave after hearing someone on the street talking about a rare item. "What was it you said about someone named Claire?" Balmung asked with only the slightest hint of contempt behind his voice.

Erika smiled meekly, "My Wave Master friend knows Claire and we did the event together. I'm guessing you know her?" (And I'm guessing he doesn't like her? Just a guess, really…)

The Blade Master grimaced slightly, "Yeah. She's one of the three founders of the Twilight Brigade." At the name of the infamous group, Shugo and Rena gasped in unison and people's heads turned instantaneously toward the group before going back to their own private discussions.

"Balmung isn't very fond of CC Corp, and he thinks the Twilight Brigade acts as their lackeys."

The armor-clad man said nothing, but it was clear that what his companion said was true. "I met Claire the other day, she didn't seem all that bad. But those other guys…" the feeling they had given Erika, the look in those identical eyes, it was unnerving and it had branded itself into the girl's memory.

Before the others could say anything someone came bursting in through the door. "Mac Anu is under attack!"

"What?" Balmung shouted as all four of them jumped up and made their way outside. It took a moment longer for the rest of the players in the café to react to the strange news. "This isn't supposed to be happening!"

But Erika did not hear him. Instead, an angry voice filled her ears as a group of monsters with purple skin and data swirling around them passed the Twin Blade by. "Where is it?" the voice screamed, "Where is the file! She cannot find it, she cannot find it!" The sound threatened to tear the Twin Blade apart but she showed no outward signs of her inner anguish.

"Come on!" Balmung said, motioning his three companions and heading out toward the stampede of monsters. Supposedly, once in a while CC Corp would have an event in which a monster would attack a city, but never this many. Unlike the other times that Erika had come across such strange monsters, the others were able to attack.

Suddenly, the golden bracelet on Shugo's arm began to glow, "Data Drain!" he yelled and in a flash of light, one of the monsters turned into something else. "Data Drain!" he yelled again, aiming the blast at another creature.

As the creatures changed form, apparently they became easier to defeat. One blow each and they disappeared into streams of data that flew into the sky. But Shugo appeared to be tiring out and Erika decided to step in. She ran forward and slashed at one of the creatures, causing it to immediately disappear. Balmung, who had been hacking away at the very same creature, stared at her in surprise but said nothing as they were attacked by another monster.

Then, everything stopped. As if the entire game had been put on pause. Everything but the PCs, player characters, stopped mid-action. Some creatures paused mid-air, shopkeepers and Grunties could not move and the players walked through this new wonderland in a daze. "Now what?" Balmung asked sarcastically, but Erika had a strange idea that she knew what was coming next.

That strange idea became reality when the voice that had been ringing throughout the girl's headpiece became audible to everyone else playing the game. "Give it back, give it back!" The file… "She cannot see it! She can never see it!"

Erika wanted to say something, she wanted to move but she was frozen by fear (who the hell wouldn't be in a situation like that?) Shugo spoke up, "We don't have anything. Stop attacking our city!" (Oh yeah, that's really going to work, Mr. Hero.)

"Who are you?" Balmung asked at the same time.

"I am everywhere, I am everything. I am Sky," as those last words rang through the silence, the sky behind the buildings of Mac Anu turned red. "Someone has it and I will find it. I will make sure she never finds it, I will make sure she can never come back." As the voice faded, so did the creatures and all of Mac Anu returned to normal.


	9. Another Piece of the Puzzle

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 9

**Another Piece of the Puzzle**

new topic posted 12.1.05

* * *

Erika dealt the last blow on the monster before it evaporated, leaving a blue treasure chest in its wake. The girl shuffled through her items and was about to unlock it when a message appeared on her screen, a notice telling her that she had new mail. The girl immediately gated out and checked her inbox and sure enough a new message was there, a button blinking beside it. It was from Amaya.

"Hey, I haven't had the chance to go online since that Wave Master event. I wanted to test out the new staff, would you mind meeting me in the…beta server? Send a reply as soon as possible."

The girl smiled and typed in her reply before logging into the beta server. It wasn't her particular favorite, she preferred the delta server with the beautiful city of Mac Anu, but it seemed as though, in this case, the young woman didn't have much of a choice.

Erika looked at the city around her when she heard Amaya calling her name, "That was fast," the other girl said when she had caught up with her friend. The Twin Blade noticed the odd weapon in her hands and her grip tightened a little on her own odd weapons. "Let's get going. Claire was telling me about this really awesome place we can go to." The other girl smiled and accepted her friend's invitation to join the party before the two of them gated out.

* * *

It was certainly an interesting place (I've never been there myself, unfortunately), but as soon as she set foot inside of it, Erika was sure that something was odd about it. It wasn't surrounded by data in the sky, or streams of data floating around them, or the screen fizzing on and off. But there was a feeling about it that the girl just couldn't shake. "Come on!" Amaya's voice broke through the other girl's thoughts.

A swirling golden light not unlike that of a Chaos Gate (I've always hated people who write stuff like that and yet here I am writing it) stood not-too-far-off from where they had first appeared in the area. Amaya ran towards it, and although Erika's Twin Blade avatar could have quickly outrun her, she stayed a little way behind.

The Wave Master activated the portal and an ordinary enough monster appeared. But the ordinariness of it could not stop the chills that were running up and down the teenager's spine (even outside of the game she was feeling it). "This staff works great!" Amaya exclaimed after they had defeated the creature in a matter of two or three attacks. "Hey, is something the matter?" she asked (took her long enough to notice).

Erika smiled unconvincingly and waved her friend's worry away somewhat tiredly, this feeling of apprehension, this unending dread was wearing her thin. "I'm find, I'm fine," she said and the other girl shrugged and ran off in a different direction in search of new gates. With a slight sigh, the Twin Blade followed her friend along, her character showing no emotion but her real self fighting visibly with her confusion.

But her confusion soon evaporated when she watched her friend throw something into a tiny lake and the creature known as 'Monsieur' appeared from the water's surface (I always thought he looked kind of like an evil mutated water drop bent on taking over the world, but maybe that's just me). "What?" Amaya exclaimed after she had gotten her item back from the creature (the lake monster), "It got weaker! That's no fair!"

Erika grinned and walked closer to her friend, "Yeah, well, that's just the way luck works, isn't it?" she said, knowing full well that luck had nothing to do with it. It had everything to do with the conditions of the area and what the Wave Master had thrown into the water. But she wasn't about to say that (it would require too much effort, no wait, that's _my_ reasoning behind everything, not hers).

The brunette sighed and put the item back into her bag before picking up her staff off the ground where she had placed it when she went to give her item to Monsieur. The Twin Blade turned around to see if she could find the dungeon somewhere over the horizon, she always found the field itself boring (same for me, the dungeons hold so much more excitement…and they have more treasure chests).

The white-haired girl heard a scream and looked around to find Amaya with her staff held in a defensive position, trying to block the attack of a monster that was clearly corrupted: purple patches of skin, floating data streams. The screen went in and out of focus and briefly Erika heard a voice ring through her speakers, "I'm going to find it, I'm going to find it before she does!" The same strange voice she had heard over and over again, the voice of the mysterious girl known only as Sky. What did all of this mean?

Erika didn't have the time to ponder it, with one attack Amaya was knocked to the ground and half of her hit-points had disappeared, swallowed up by the strange creature. "This is just like last time!" she said, comprehension dawning on her face as she referred to the monster she, Erika, and Claire had fought against to obtain the weapon that the Wave Master held now.

"Yeah, just the same," the Twin Blade muttered to herself, her brilliant blue eyes focused on the creature's movements. She had fought so many of these corrupted monsters that it felt completely normal when she sliced through its skin while no one else could. Her blades became flames in her hands and she jumped into the air, as she fell to the ground Erika brought them both down onto the monster.

The creature toppled to the ground and dust flew around them causing the characters to choke and gasp for fresh air that they could not find. But rather than watching for where the monster fell, the blue-eyed teenager looked to the sky and watched streams of data float into the blue expanse. "Another treasure chest," Amaya said, her voice breaking through Erika's thoughts (that voice can break through anything).

The Twin Blade walked over to where her friend stood, a blue treasure chest rested between the two girls as the brunette shifted the staff from hand to hand. She undid the trap easily and opened the chest. "Wow, I just got this really weird Blade Master weapon…it has almost the same stats as my staff!" she added in surprise. It most likely had similar stats to Erika's weapon as well, but she didn't say anything because at that moment a message appeared in the center of her screen: a new file had been obtained.

"Hey, Amaya," the white-haired girl said, already preparing to leave so, "I have somewhere I have to be. Sorry about that," she apologized though she did not sound very convincing as her thoughts were on something completely different.

The Wave Master shook her head as if snapping out of her own trance, "Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Keep in touch, I'll be sure to!"

* * *

Erika sat at her computer screen, twirling her long dark hair around her finger as she sent a message to Koto, the strange new file attached at the bottom. The other girl would be able to decipher it; after all, she was the only daughter of the infamous Helba. She couldn't shake the odd feeling left behind by that fight from her mind. It was something she couldn't explain, something that felt too natural to explain but so foreign that it could not be normal (did that make any sense to you, because I have no idea what I just said).

Well, at any rate, hopefully the brown-haired, slightly abnormal Heavy Blade would come through and decipher the file. Hopefully, it would answer the questions left behind by its predecessor.


	10. Appeared Out of the Sky

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 10.0

**Appeared Out of the Sky**

new topic posted 12.6.05

* * *

It was a rare occasion indeed that Erika decided to check the message board (sometimes it's convenient, but most times it's just a nuisance). She was surprised to see a topic about a strange area that sounded oddly familiar to the girl. A place in which streams of data floated into the vast emptiness of the sky, a place that caused a person's screen to shift in and out of focus. It sounded like an interesting lead, and the teenager needed a way to get the file that she had just sent Koto out of her head.

A week: that was how long it had been since Erika had found and sent that file. It wasn't like her friend to take such a long time on something like that (hey, I do have a life outside the computer that I need to keep up with as well). The girl entered her favorite city and breathed in the not-quite-so-fresh virtual air. She looked through her member addresses to see who was online and noticed that only one of the many odd friends she had made was only online: Death.

It had been a fairly long time since the last time the two had met, though they did often converse through e-mail, and before she found the last file they had done some training together. But that was about it, since this newest mystery she had not spoken (or typed as the case may be) one word to him. Hopefully, he wouldn't decline an invitation.

Erika waited impatiently for the boy to reply as she wandered through the streets of Mac Anu and listened (not even half-way interested) to the conversations taking place around her. Once or twice, the Twin Blade heard mention of the strange area, but never anything about how to get in, or what was there. In a matter of moments, a young, dark Long Arm strode over to where the girl stood, leaning against Mac Anu's main bridge (guess that meant he didn't need to send a reply, then).

"I was looking at that very same message just before you mailed me," Death said, smiling as he stood beside the girl and leaned his elbows against the side of the bridge. "An interesting coincidence, don't you think?"

The way he said it sent chills down the girl's spine, but her character did not show it and she made sure her voice would not either. "Definitely. So, what did you think about it?"

The boy looked thoughtfully at a gondola floating below them, they were quite popular in 'The World' but generally either the very wealthy, very well-known, or very influential characters could hitch a ride. "In some ways it seems to be a hoax, but in others…" he shook his head and pushed his dark bangs out of his even darker eyes. "Right after I read your e-mail, I went back to the post to reread it, but by that time it had been deleted. Obviously, CC Corp saw it as some sort of threat, but the fact that there were no keywords suggests that it isn't real."

"Yeah, but did you notice that there was no name under who posted it? I checked when I was looking at it. Nothing there, it was like it had just appeared out of the sky." Out of the sky! Why hadn't she thought of that before (because you're a fool, Erika, a fool!)? Maybe that mysterious program, that girl, Sky, was the one who had posted it, in an attempt to lure out the person who had those files that she was so desperate to get those virtual hands on.

Death watched her a moment then he leaned back, his hands still holding tightly onto the railing so that he would not fall over backwards (though that certainly would have been entertaining). "You seem different than usual."

Erika looked down at her hands, she had tried extremely hard to hide it, was her aggravation really showing in her character? Or had the boy heard it in her voice. "Yeah, well, I just came from a trip to a place that I loathe going to."

"Loathe is a strong word…"

"I don't know anyone who likes going to the hospital," both IRL and in the game, Erika clasped her hands over her mouth. She hadn't meant to say that, one of the reasons she had joined the game was so that she wouldn't have to deal with people treating her as if she could break any second of her own accord. As if there was something wrong with her, as if she needed to be treated differently otherwise there would be dire consequences. If the people she met in 'The World' started treating her that way, she wouldn't know where else to go.

The boy studied her closely, "Why are you so upset about saying that? I mean, I understand people might treat you differently, but this is a game, it's not like I'm going to stop sneaking up behind you in sneak attacks. So, why'd you have to go?"

"Does that really matter? Either way, I went."

Death shrugged his shoulders and heaved his lance over his shoulder, "You're right, it doesn't matter. That's why you shouldn't get so worked up over it. Don't stress too much, you'll have a heart-attack," he turned around and grinned before walking away and disappearing into the crowds but one last message from him appeared on the girl's screen. "It's been nice talking to you, surprisingly. But try not to stay away for too long again, you'll make me think that you're afraid of me and that wouldn't do at all…"


	11. In a Place Called Confusion

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 11.0

**In a Place Called Confusion**

new topic posted 12.27.05

* * *

"Erika! Erika!" Koto called as she made her way through the crowd of people over to her friend. It seemed that all the PCs, Player Characters, were there, standing around that tiny billboard in front of the café in Mac Anu.

The Twin Blade looked around for her friend through the people but she could not find the brunette. The next moment, though, the Heavy Blade had drawn her weapon and was swung it in the air above her head, a beacon of sorts (not exactly safe, but at least it worked…). The white-haired teenager grinned and made her way to where she knew her friend was. Only Koto would do something like that. "You called?" Erika asked when she had managed to make her way to her friend, looking up at the taller girl's features.

"Yeah, I called, come on. We'll go to that special place," she winked and the other girl knew exactly what place she was talking about: the Net Slums. The Twin Blade nodded her white head and followed the other girl onto the open street and toward the Chaos Gate. The two teenagers formed a party and stepped through the swirling golden light.

No matter how many times Erika went to the Net Slums, the place always made her feel uncomfortable, as if she didn't belong there (so, okay, this was only her second time…). When she looked up at her friend's face, she noticed the expression of calm, relaxed, familiarity. This place was like a home to her, it probably came with being an experienced and talented hacker, and the daughter of the best hacker 'The World' had ever seen. "I deciphered that new file," the Heavy Blade said after she had checked around to make sure no one was listening in.

The other girl rolled her unnaturally white eyes (no, really, she never would have guessed). "And…?"

"It's strange, weirder than last time. At least with the other file I got a fragmented movie, this time I don't even get that. Nothing, nada, zip—"

"I got it. You didn't see anything. I know what you're thinking, give it here," the white-haired Twin Blade held out a thin, pale hand while her friend shuffled through her items for the file. It didn't take long for the file to switch hands and as soon as it was in her possession, Erika double clicked and awaited the results…

And waited, and waited…Koto turned to the other girl who was looking around in what appeared to be a mix of amazement and horror, it was a facial expression that even she had trouble with. "Well, I guess that's a dud, give it back, I can try to get more information on what exactly those files are—"

The Twin Blade began to glow, an eerie blue white light much like the color of her hair, eyes, and clothes. "Wha—what's going on? Koto!"

"Hey! I'm not doing anything!" (Which, strangely enough, was the truth).

In an instant, however, Erika stopped glowing and returned to normal, but apparently things were not so normal on her end for the odd look on her face had intensified. "I think we have a problem," she said with false casualness. Koto gave her a questioning look with her chocolate brown eyes. "Umm…I can't see the screen any more, is that normal?"

"What?" the Heavy Blade yelled so loudly that digital dust fell from the surrounding buildings as they shook (alright, that may be a slight exaggeration). "That sort of thing is definitely not normal, I haven't heard of this ever happening before—wait a minute, scratch that thought. I have heard of it! I'll be back in a second!" Her character stopped still and would not move as the girl left her computer screen IRL

Meanwhile, Erika was slightly busy panicking, and imagining her own funeral inside her head. "What happened to my body? They're all going to think I'm dead! They'll bury me and I won't ever be able to go back home! I'm not dead yet! I'm still alive!"

"I'm aware of that," Koto said, she had apparently already made her way back to her computer. "I remember a few years back, Mom told me about a kid who couldn't logout—"

"I never said I couldn't log out…"

"Try it!"

But what if Koto was right (of course I was right, how dare she doubt my integrity), and she really couldn't log back out of the world. What then? Swallowing her fears, literally, wondered how she was supposed to access her menu screen when somehow she felt herself floating upwards in much the same way one did when they were logging out. There, in your face, Koto! It was working! All of a sudden, everything around her stopped moving and she slammed back onto the ground.

"Told you, will you let me finish, now?" Erika nodded and the brunette continued, "Mom said there was this one kid who couldn't log out, and he couldn't see his screen at all. Apparently he was connected to something called the Key of the Twilight and Aura. I just went to ask her about it…let's just say, we've brought Helba the hacker out of her retirement."

"Well, how am I supposed to get out of here?"

The Heavy Blade shrugged, "One of those weird files is what started this, so maybe we have to find another one and it'll set things back to normal."

"So what are we supposed to do? Check every single area there is? There are thousands of areas on each server, and then there are dozens of servers. I wouldn't live to go through them all!"

"That's why Mom's decided to get back to hacking. Even though she swore she'd give it up. She's a lot better than I am, so she should be able to find something that could help, then all we have to do is go there and get it, no big." Erika felt like smacking her but she knew it would do no good (I wouldn't have been able to feel it) when Koto's expression cleared. "Mom just found something, a malfunctioning area, blocked off…the whole nine-yards. I'll bet almost anything one of those freaky files from the bottom pits of hell is somewhere in there."

Without another word, the two girls made their way back to Mac Any where Koto punched in the coordinates. It was just the kind of place that the Twin Blade had been expecting: spooky, definitely, but more than that. Broken streams of data, fuzzy vision, an oddly colored sky…Koto was right, one of those fragments had to be here. It would be a matter of finding which monster held it, as well. One after another, the players made their way through the hordes of monsters, but to no avail.

The two girls had just made their way out of the dungeon when they were attacked by another monster. "This has to be it, this is the last one!" Erika yelled as she slashed at the creature and thought up the combination moves she wanted to use. It was as if this body already knew what it was doing as it performed her abilities. But they got nothing.

"I don't get it, Mom's never been wrong before!"

"She gave up hacking for a while, though, didn't she? Hey, I just e-mailed you my phone number IRL, could you tell my mom what's going on and that I'm really sorry for causing her so much trouble. Can you thank her for taking me in, for me?"

"You're talking like you're dying!" Koto said angrily as she kicked a stone into a pond much like the ones usually associated with Monsieur, "we'll get you out of here. We just have to look again, a different area or something!"

"Koto—"

"Don't worry, I'm sure we'll figure out what's going on!"

"Koto—"

"What? What is it?"

The white-haired teenager pointed a shaky hand at something in the lake behind her friend. Koto turned around and immediately jumped backwards out of reflex, what stood there (or floated as the case may be) was what looked like Monsieur but with streams of data floating off of him and patches of purple on its skin. "Great, just great, we have to beat a Monsieur. No one's ever been able to hit a Monsieur, that would go completely against their programming!"

Erika grimaced and settled into her fighting stance while the other girl did the same at her side. "After you!" Koto yelled, pushing the Twin Blade forward unexpectedly (I must have underestimated you, assuming you'd expect that of me…you disappoint me, I shun you!). Instinctively, the girl thought of a combo to unleash and was surprised to find that one of her volley of attacks had actually hit its mark; one of countless attempts.

"Alright! I hit him!" She continued hacking away at Monsieur while Koto stood to the side and watched, assuming that she would have gotten in the way in such a situation (I wouldn't have been able to hit the stupid thing anyway, trust me, I've tried). Eventually, the Monsieur let out a piteous moan (it was more like someone crying into a filled teacup, very difficult to hear) and fell back into the pond as numerous drops of clear water. Rather than a blue treasure chest appearing where the defeated creature once stood, as that would have been very difficult considering the circumstances, a message rang through Erika's head. She immediately sifted through her items and took out the strange new file she had received. "Let's hope this works!" she said as she closed her eyes and opened it.

* * *

The young-looking dark-haired girl that was Erika outside of the confines of 'The World' opened her eyes to a clean white ceiling in a clean white room with a clear plastic mask covering the bottom part of her face. She had finally made it out of the game, but what awaited her now?


	12. A Trip Into The Past

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 12.0

**A Trip Into the Past: Memories of a Twilight**

new topic posted 1.14.06

* * *

"Oh, God, Erika…" the dark-haired teenager felt her mother's arms wrap around her small, slim frame. "I'm so glad you're alright." She felt something cool and wet soak through the thin hospital robe that she had woken up in when her eyes opened to the clean white room. A plastic mask was pressed against her mouth and she didn't need to look to the side to notice the IV sticking out of her arm. Erika was in the hospital…again. Back to this godforsaken place that she was always trying to forget about.

The girl tried to push her mother off of her but was too tired to will her limbs to move. Luckily, a nurse chose that moment to walk in and pull the teenager's mother off of her. "I'm fine, Mother. What happened?" she asked, trying to stop herself from laughing at the way her voice was muffled by the plastic.

"You passed out, sweetie," the nurse said considering how Erika's mother was crying too much to speak (although whether that was from happiness or disappointment is beyond me). "You've been out for the past few hours."

"Can you take this off?" Erika asked, it was clear enough that she meant the mask despite the fact that she made no indication as to what the object in question was.

The nurse shook her head, "Not until we get the doctor's okay, I'll call him down as soon as he's available." (How long that might be depends on the doctor, at least in my opinion…I've never had a particularly high opinion of doctors, nurses on the other hand I give a lot of credit to.)

* * *

A few days later, Erika's mother was doting on her adopted daughter more than usual (to the degree of crushing her from it). When the girl came home from school and threw her bag on top of her bed, causing it to groan underneath its incredible weight (I myself learned early on not to carry my books around, school only judges one kind of intelligence anyway), and sat on the chair in front of her computer. She was itching to get back online; her mother had tried as hard as she could manage to keep Erika too busy to touch the computer that now sat gathering dust in the corner of the teenager's room. But finally, it was the girl's chance. Nothing her mother said could take this time away from her…

She pulled the headpiece over her eyes and double-clicked on the icon that would transport her to 'The World.' A place where mysterious things happened…

* * *

As soon as she was logged on, the girl made certain to send an e-mail to three of the most knowledgeable players she knew (or really, two of the most knowledgeable players, the third just always came along for the ride). It didn't take long for her to receive their replies and before long the girl was sitting at a table in the café, debating with herself over what information she should tell them and what she should leave out.

Erika took a sip from the mug of hot chocolate sitting in front of her on the table that held room enough for four when the door opened and the characters for whom she had been waiting ever so impatiently walked in. "Erika!" Shugo yelled, waving his arms in the air as he caught sight of the girl.

"What was it that you needed to tell us?" Balmung asked curiously, he was an odd one (this coming from the girl who has friends like me…I can't believe I just called myself odd). There were times when he could be completely serious (and more than a little scary, sorry Balmung, but you creep me out sometimes) and then there were times when he could be so completely carefree and outgoing…

The three newcomers took their seats around the table and gave their orders to the poor terrified waitress, a PC, player character, that was among those who idolized the three heroes. Erika had finally settled on what information she would entrust with these strange people: how she, for a while at least, couldn't log out, everything short of telling them about the strange files she and Koto continually stumbled upon. "It isn't normal to not be able to logout, right?"

"What?" Shugo shouted, just as the poor waitress had come back with their orders.

Rena apologized to the girl for her brother, "I'm sorry about that," she said as she passed their plates on to her friends. "What do you mean? Everyone can log out of 'The World.'"

"Well, for a while I couldn't see the screen, I couldn't log out. Weird, right? I wanted to know if you guys knew anything about that…"

"Sorry, I've never heard of something like that happening before," Rena said apologetically.

But out of the corner of her eye, Erika saw Balmung's expression instantly change as he shook his brilliant white head. "No, I've heard of something like this. A Wave Master from a long time ago, before Kite and BlackRose ever entered the game." Kite and BlackRose, the original Dot Hackers… "I don't know whether to call him a he or a she now, since in the game it was a he and IRL a girl. But the name was Tsukasa, I think the girl still plays, but under a different character now."

"I've never heard of that!" Shugo said as he looked up from the plate of placed in front of him.

His sister shook her head, "You haven't heard of a lot of things, brother."

"Well, what happened?" The white clad Twin Blade asked curiously, maybe this would lead to some clues about what was going on.

The Blade Master appeared to be having difficulty remembering what it was that had happened to that poor Wave Master from oh-so-long-ago. "Well, everything I found out was from either Subaru or Crim, but what I heard was pretty strange. The Crimson Knights went after him for a little while, but apparently he had no memory of his past," (and apparently you decided on a gender for the kid, Balmung), "and his life IRL. He couldn't log out and he could bypass pretty much all the rules of the game. I think it was because of the Key of the Twilight."

The Key of the Twilight, eh? Maybe that was what those fragments were, pieces of the Key of the Twilight, whatever that was. So, what did that mean, that when she found all the pieces they'd turn into a key that would let her bypass all the rules? Pretty cool…

"What files?"

"Don't tell me I said all that out loud…" Erika groaned and smacked herself on the head. "I promised I wouldn't say anything about it to anyone. I am so horrible at keeping secrets" (that you are, my dear, but it causes no end of entertainment for people like me…).

Balmung smiled (darn, he and I were on the same wavelength, talk about scary), "Yeah, I'd have to say that you did."

"Well, what files are you talking about?" Shugo asked, he had already cleared his plate and was now eyeing the food that lay untouched on Balmung's.

The dark-haired teenager grimaced at her computer, well, what now? She had already let it slip, might as well tell them everything, right? "Well, a lot of strange things have been going on…you know that already. Hold on, let me start again. Do you remember when I heard that voice and my friend didn't?"

How could they forget? Or, really, how could Balmung and Rena forget…? "That isn't where the weirdness stops, though. I keep finding these weird files that only seem to unlock when I open them. The first time it was pretty cool, my friend and I saw this movie about creating a program named 'Sky' to replace one called 'Aura…'"

"Aura?" Rena asked, leaning closer to the center of the table in hopes of less people listening in on their already strange conversation.

"Well, that's what they said. Why, what is it?"

"More like 'Who is it?' you mean."

This time Shugo supplied the answer (hey, I'm just as surprised as anyone else out there, and if you're reading this Shugo, I meant that in the nicest way possible, really). "Aura's this program that takes the shape of a girl in the game. 'The World' pretty much relies on her existence," he and his companions exchanged dark looks that caused Erika a great deal of confusion, but something distracted the girl before she could say anything.

"Thanks you guys, you've helped me a lot, my mom's calling me so I have to go!" she stood up and made her way out the door of the small café, waving good-bye before she walked outside and disappeared.

"So, what do you say to a little file hunting?" Balmung asked, a smile playing on his lips. It had been a while since something this interesting had happened in the game and he was itching to get involved. A life of leisure did not suit him well at all…

The siblings smiled back, "I guess we'd better call in all our old friends," Rena said as the three of them stood up as well to make their way out of the café where they would be able to send e-mails to their old party.


	13. Outlaw Meets Outlaw

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 13.0

**Outlaw Meets Outlaw**

new topic posted 1.29.06

* * *

Erika was lying on her side at the edge of the river that ran through Mac Anu, watching people on the other side walk by. "I thought you'd be here," she heard a voice say from right above her. The girl shielded her eyes against the virtual sun as she looked up and saw the silhouette of a brunette with a large sword strapped to her back, Koto.

"You were looking for me? I'm sorry…" the girl said as she stood up and brushed herself off. "Wait a second. Why were you looking for me?"

The Heavy Blade gave her friend a grin, "Because you wouldn't check your e-mail. I sent you a message this morning and you never got back to me. That hurts, right here" (I missed my heart…hey, no one ever said I was good at anatomy).

The white-haired teenager chuckled, Koto was right (of course I was!) she hadn't checked for messages when she had logged on only ten minutes earlier. "Fine, fine…well, you've found me. Deliver your message."

"I'm not some delivery person that you can just push around!" Koto said jokingly, "But I will give you this message because I think you just might find it interesting. We got Mom out of retirement, so she's been doing a lot of research and, guess what she found?"

"A dysfunctional daughter…?"

"No! A dysfunctional area!" A glint appeared in Koto's eyes as she saw her friend's body instantly tense up. "Knew that would get your attention…the only problem with the area is, there's two dungeons and there's supposed to be this really tough monster in one of them."

Erika raised her eyebrows, "That's two problems," she said (I knew that, thank you very much). "Well, if it's that tough, maybe we should ask someone else to come along…"

Now the brunette raised an eyebrow as she placed her hands on her hips, "Oh yeah? And who could we possibly ask to come along? We're not asking anyone who's in connection with the Twilight Brigade."

"I do know people outside of that," the Twin Blade said, "I know you, don't I?" (Now, someone tell me, was that meant as a compliment or not?) "I know this Player Killer that would probably love to come with us."

Koto nodded her head, only having really paid attention to part of what her friend said, "Alright, alright. Call…call…" (So it takes a while for that kind of stuff to register, don't make fun of me!). "A PK? Are you insane?"

"Once again, I know you don't I?" (Saddest part is that she had a point). "He's alright, hasn't killed me yet. Give me a sec while I send him a message."

The Heavy Blade looked around at the crowd passing by, as if afraid that someone would jump out from the rush and attack her. "Maybe he's not online…" (not that I was scared or anything).

"Too bad for you, he is. He says he'll be over as soon as he finishes with something."

"Hello! Earth to Erika! What he's finishing is _killing another player_! That's what PKs do!"

"I'm very upset that you don't think I have a life outside of that." Koto swung around, bringing her blade up into a defensive position at the same time. "Let me guess, you're Koto? Don't look at me like that," (yes, I was giving him my own brand of evil eye), "I'm not stalking you. Erika told me about you in her message; she said you were afraid of me."

Koto shot a brown-eyed glare toward her friend who didn't seem to catch the message until the Heavy Blade said something. "I am not afraid of you," though her gaze was focused on Erika, her words were directed towards the dark young man. "I—"

"Why don't we get going, you guys," the Twin Blade interrupted (and I had a really good comeback, too, I swear). "We can do a proper introduction once we get there and there are less people around."

Reluctantly, her companions agreed and they made their way to the swirling golden light that was the Chaos Gate. A message appeared on all teenagers' screens saying that the area was off-limits, but in the same instant Koto had pulled something out of her items and they appeared in the area.

It gave off the same eerie feeling as the other corrupt areas Erika had been to. A purple sky streaming with data, vision acting up, and when they first arrive she heard a distant voice. "She can't get them…she can't get them…" the repeated, though neither of the girl's companions seemed to have noticed.

"You're a hacker?" the Player Killer asked, sounding highly impressed.

Unfortunately, Koto caught that note in his voice and let it get to her head. She puffed her chest out slightly (which is the reason Erika insists on the nickname 'puff-bird' even though I think it's lame). "No big deal, getting here was easy; I could do that kind of hacking when I was nine." (Hey, no one ever said I was modest).

"Koto," Erika motioned toward the Heavy Blade for her late introductions, "is the only daughter of Helba the hacker. And Death," as she mentioned the boy's name he gave a mock bow, "is a Player Killer."

The Heavy Blade tried in vain to choke down her laughter. "'Death'? Are you serious? Dude, couldn't you think up a better name?"

The boy merely smiled, a look that could send chills down anyone's spines, "Am I right in assuming you've used your real name for your character?"

"Of course not, it's a nickname!" (Oh yeah, that was brilliant of me, it isn't all that much better).

"Quit fighting! We all know why we're here: to see if there's one of those files in this place, so let's get to it. There's two dungeons so we'll probably be here a while," Erika said (alright, question, who made her the leader?).

The Twin Blade made her way towards the nearest dungeon, the other one laying a little way off in the distance, avoiding swirls of light in the process. The other two continued bickering, but the white-haired teenager managed to ignore it as she entered the dungeon's mouth (more literally than most) and waited for her friends to follow her in. They went from room to room they fought monster after monster (alright, I have to admit, that PK is pretty good). Surprisingly, Koto and Death worked well together, they had something in common that Erika couldn't quite explain. Some link, some connection…

They finally reached the last room, it was completely empty. Erika cursed under her breath and her companions stared at her open-mouthed in surprise, she never swore. "All that time and all those items wasted and there wasn't even anything here! I don't have any healing items left!"

"Don't worry, don't worry, you've got spells right?" Koto said after she got over the initial shock. "I mean, just one dungeon over and we'll have it, right?" The Twin Blade sighed and they used a Sprite Ocarina to get out, but the instant they were back on the field they were attacked.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say there's something here that's trying to keep us away from that file of yours," Death said amiably, grinning widely as he stabbed at the monster with his lance and it disappeared.

The three of them ran toward the dungeon, chased by the creature that had been accompanying the one the Long Arm had just killed. "You're a moron. Of course there's something trying to stop us! Besides, what fun would it be if there wasn't?"

The boy laughed, "True, true." They quickly cut their way through the second dungeon. When the teenagers got to the last room they all exchanged glances. "Is everyone at top condition?"

"As good as I'll get," Koto replied with a laugh as she and Death pushed open the door, allowing Erika to squeeze through the crack and rush inside before the others (taking all the glory…darn her!).

In the center stood a creature with patches of purple on its skin and visible streams of data surrounding it. "I guess we've found it, then," Erika said anxiously. She wasn't sure whether she liked everything that was happening or not.

Before they could attack, the shadow of a girl appeared on the other side of the room, a girl who looked identical to Erika's character but dressed in a long flowing black gown rather than white and with glaring orange eyes (I love Halloween colors). "She cannot find them; I will not let her get them. She must not have them; I will not let her delete me…"

The image faded and the monster slowly turned to face them. The three teenagers instantly started to attack, Koto and Death working together so well that it was almost as if they had planned everything from the start. Their teamwork left Erika feeling slightly left out, despite the fact that she was the only one that was actually dealing any damage to the creature.

It was Death who jumped back and started using scrolls, to great effect, while Koto and Erika continued to hack away at the beast. The Heavy Blade jumped up into the air and brought her blade down towards the creature's head just as Death used a scroll that caused spikes to envelope the creature, making it unable to move out of the way. Erika took the opportunity and while the spell was fading she jumped forward and spun, her blades leaving waves of darkness as they slashed into the monster.

The creature disappeared and a treasure chest appeared in the last place it had stood. The white-haired Twin Blade opened the chest and turned to look at her friends whose faces were curious despite their attempts at hiding it. "I didn't find any file, but I did find something you might find interesting, Koto."

She pulled a black sword from her items and handed it to her friend who immediately swung it in an arc through the air, testing it. As it moved a trail of darkness formed in the path it had taken, it was just like the blades Koto had given Erika when they had first gone adventuring together (thinking about how long ago that was makes me feel old; I'm not old!). "Awesome, it's got some good stats, too."

"Yes, but it seems as though we've been sent on a wild goose chase," said Death.

"Who cares? It turned out alright, and you didn't kill us!"

"So you really were afraid. I knew it!" the boy grinned knowingly as he taunted the Heavy Blade.

Erika sighed and covered her face with her hands, "Why in the world did I have to bring them both along?"

_I'll find her; I must not let her have them. Those files…she must never have them. I will not let her come back; I will not let her delete me. I will never become obsolete!_


	14. I Want to Know You

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 14.0

**I Want to Know You**

new topic posted 2.11.06

* * *

Alright, here's a side note from Koto for you all. There is absolutely no point to this segment. Yeah, you might say there's no point to most of the stuff I've posted, but there really is. Honestly, I'm not lying. Later!

* * *

It was early Saturday morning (well, early for most teenagers) when Erika awoke to the annoying ringing of the phone next to her bed. She turned over onto her side and covered her ears with her pillow, muffling the sound. At least, muffling the ringing, she couldn't keep out her mother's voice as she thundered up the stairs to her adopted daughter's bedroom, flinging the door open and throwing the covers off the teenager. "It's cold!" Erika whined, her one hand groping wildly for her blanket while the other remained over the pillow.

"You have a phone call," the woman said. "It's from someone called 'Koto,' I think it was…"

Koto? How in the world did Koto get her phone number? (I'm just great like that, that's how.) Erika picked up the phone next to her bed and shooed her mother out of the room. "Koto?"

"The one and only," that was definitely Koto's voice. "I thought I'd give you a ring…" (Give her a ring? What the hell was I saying?)

That wasn't the point… "How did you get this number?"

Erika could almost hear her friend's shrug through the phone, "You gave it to me, remember? When you thought you'd never get back to the real world? And I thought my memory was bad."

"Why are you calling?" she sounded exasperated (she should have been delighted to hear from sweet little me).

"Just wanted to see if you wanted to head over to the mall with me…is that too much to ask?" The obvious answer was 'yes.' "Come on, with all the stuff that's been going down in 'The World' I figure you could use a break."

She had a point. The things that had been happening in the game haunted Erika in real life. "Fine, give me three hours…" There was only one mall in the area, so it wasn't that hard to guess the place Koto was talking about.

* * *

It was up to Erika to find her friend (we were doomed) since her appearance was different IRL than it was in the world of the game. It didn't take long (since I stand out so much from the crowd…and I was the only one leaning against the side of the door waiting while everyone else was rushing to get inside). "Koto!" the raven-haired girl called to her friend, waving a hand. She had just come from a trip to the hospital (poor excuse for leaving me waiting for _three whole hours_).

"Hey!" the other girl said, pushing herself off the side of the building and brushing a strand of brown hair out of her chocolate brown eyes at the same time. "Wow, you look…different…"

Being in the horrible mood she was, it probably wasn't the best of things to say. "Yeah, and you look so…the same," she said sarcastically, tossing her long, dark hair out of her pale face.

Koto held her hands up and smiled, "Don't need to be testy. Want to talk about it over a smoothie? I don't know if you've been to the new shop that opened up maybe few weeks ago…friend works there, I can get discounts."

The other girl sighed and hung her head. When she looked back up she had an apologetic smile on her face, "Sorry about that. Sure, I could go for something to eat…drink…whatever…"

The two friends chatted about the goings on in 'The World' as the tall brunette led them to the café and ordered some food for the both of them from her friend. While she sipped at her smoothie, Erika stared into her mug of hot chocolate and blinked away tears caused by its steam. "Hey, you never said what it was that put you in such a bad mood."

Erika mumbled something inaudible and Koto kicked her swiftly under the table. The dark-haired girl glared at her friend and said, "Hospital."

"What about it?"

"Just came from a visit…"

Koto raised her eyebrows (so, I'm incapable of raising only one…) and took another sip from her smoothie as her friend laid down a tray of food on the table and she gave him a quick smile before turning her attention back to Erika. "That sucks…"

That was it. No, 'Oh my, are you okay' kind of thing, no worry in her voice (can you imagine the great and powerful me fawning over someone else?). It was kind of refreshing; whenever Erika told someone about her frequent visits to the hospital they usually started acting different towards her, like she could break at any given moment in time. But this girl, this girl that she only knew through 'The World' acted like it was no big deal. That was jus the kind of thing Erika wanted.

"Yeah, it does. Aren't you going to ask why?"

Koto shrugged, "Nah. Tell me if you want, but otherwise, I don't want to go into something that would ruin a shopping spree."

The other teenager shook her head, her dark hair breaking loose from where she had tucked them behind her ears and slightly covering her pale face. "It's alright, I think it would be kind of nice to tell someone else," not to mention interesting. (She told me a few months later that she likes to experiment with people to see their reactions to certain things, and I happened to be one of her experiments…what nerve!) "I don't remember anything about who I was. So I guess I'm kind of an anomaly, but then there's the fact that I'm always getting sick. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong with me, so they have this whole, 'If we do enough tests we're bound to find something' mentality…"

"I know what you mean, can't stand doctors myself. Though nurses, say anything bad about nurses and I'll have to beat you to a pulp," it was amazing that the girl could say all that with a straight face (how many times do I have to prove my greatness to you?). Apparently, Erika couldn't listen to it that way…she burst out laughing. It was like a bubble had been popped, a relieved kind of laughter. Relieved that Koto didn't think she was a freak, now. "Come on," the brunette said, slamming her palm against the table and lifting up her hand to reveal a pile of crumpled bills, "let's get shopping."

"Hey, that's no fair!" Erika yelled, jumping up from her seat and following her friend out of the café and into the crowded mall. At her friend's confused look she went on, "I told you about me, now tell me about you."

The brunette shrugged as she walked into a clothing store just across from them. She held a shirt up to her chest and her eyes clearly asked for the other girl's opinion, but Erika was staying quiet until she talked. "Nothing interesting really; Mom's a hacker, Dad's a good-for-nothing, my name isn't really Koto…"

"What?"

"Koto's a nickname. The name's really Kotoka...Minazuki Kotoka."

"I meant about your dad…"

"Oh, that he's a good-for-nothing bum?" she said it so casually, it surprised Erika. It was as if she didn't care (to tell the truth, I don't…the man could burn in a tub of acid for all I care). "Divorced when I was younger…blah, blah…can't pay child support…blah, blah…essentially disappeared from my life for six months before trying to pick up ties again…blah, blah. No big deal."

Koto looked at her friend, afraid that something would be different now that she had spoken about what she hardly ever told anyone. But she was greatly mistaken. Instead, the dark-haired girl broke into impossibly loud laughter (people were staring, and come to think of it, she was kind of scaring me, too). "Don't we make a strange pair, then? We're both screwed up," she said with a smile that Koto gratefully returned.

"Screwed up or not, I still want to finish this shopping…"


	15. Slide in and No One Will Notice

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 15.0

**Slide in and No One Will Notice**

new topic posted 2.19.06

* * *

Erika lay on her bed in her room, running her hands through her long dark hair as she stared at the white ceiling that reflected the light from the lamp beside her bed. She was thinking about how much she wanted to go online to play 'The World' but it was such a nice, warm, lazy day that she didn't feel like moving. Such a nice day…she wondered whether it was just as nice in Mac Anu, then again, the weather was almost always beautiful in 'The World.' She closed her dark eyes; the weather must be so nice in the game…

When the girl opened her eyes again, she was staring at the sky. She pulled her hair in front of her face to see; it was a pure, snow white. Erika jerked up to a sitting position and looked around, she was inside the game. But how, how had she gotten there? And most of all, why couldn't she see the screen again? 

She felt something go off in her head and checked her e-mail the same way she had done it before, last time she couldn't see the screen. She read over a message from Balmung, asking her to meet with him, Shugo, and Rena in what had quickly become their favorite spot: the café.

Erika looked rested her arm on one of the sheaths at her side that held the blades she used as weapons in this world. Small bells chimed overhead as she pushed open the glass door to the café and immediately spotted Balmung with his long white wings, Shugo dressed in orange from head to toe, and Rena hailing her over with the oversized shining sword (I've done that before, it's actually a lot of fun, scaring the people around you with something that could hack easily hack them in half).

"What'd you call me out for?" (Come on, girl, don't say it that way, it makes it sound like they're challenging you to a duel or something stupid like that.)

Rena stopped waving her sword in the air and Shugo pointed to a fourth chair at the small round table. "Ever since you told us about those files and the whole Sky thing, we decided to go do a little searching on our own."

That piqued the Twin Blade's interest. "And did you find out anything interesting?" (Duh, why else would they have bothered you about it?)

The other Twin Blade shook his head (which usually means no, but apparently to Shugo it can mean anything). "Kind of, nothing we did worked against the corrupt monsters except my Data Drain."

"But that isn't why we e-mailed you," Rena continued on.

Only to be interrupted by Balmung (which was most unusual for him). "I still have some contacts in CC Corp, so I got some inside information on an area that's recently just become off-limits. Shugo's a hacker, so we can get in fairly easily. We're asking you to come along, to see if anything happens."

Erika grinned; she had been waiting for some sort of adventure to happen, things were just too boring for her in the real world. It was a good thing she came, though her means of getting there had been completely blown out of her mind. "Let's go."

* * *

The four of them looked up at the dungeon looming before them, well more like a castle really. They exchanged glances before stepping inside, Shugo and Erika at the lead (alright, I guess I have to admit that being a Twin Blade does have some benefits).

The area was just like any other corrupt area Erika had been to so far in the game. The screen fizzing out, that occasional buzzing in her ears, streams of data floating into the space above them only to disappear. And in the dungeon, patches of walls and floors that were still in data form or that didn't exist at all. But the monsters, they were ordinary, so far.

Ordinary, and extremely easy, though that may have been thanks to Balmung (just because he's stronger than me doesn't mean I'm not at his level…okay, maybe it does). The winged character brought his sword down to slash at one of the monsters and it instantly disappeared into a stream of data that floated not toward the ceiling as many others that they had defeated had done, but instead down the hallway and through a locked door. That meant there was another monster somewhere in the room that they had to defeat.

And it appeared quickly enough; Erika launched herself off the monster's shoulders, flipped around and slashed at the creature's back as she fell-headfirst to the ground while Shugo stabbed at the monster from the front.

A blue treasure chest appeared in front of them and Rena disarmed it while her brother took whatever it was that was inside. Not one word needed to be said; in fact hardly anything was said at all. But that was the way things seemed to go when Erika was in a party with Balmung. She relished the quiet, thinking back on the chaos that had ensued when she had invited both Death and Koto along.

The doors creaked open and Erika looked over at Balmung, who's attention was focused somewhere in front of them, through the door that had just swung itself open. "What's up?"

"Both those data streams went down this hall instead of disappearing."

"That means there's something there," Shugo said, sprinting forward with a head-start that none of the others could catch up to. In the distance, Erika and the others saw him stop. The white-haired teenager was about to ask why, but as they neared the question seemed unnecessary.

A purple haze seeped through the cracks in a door that loomed in front of them. "This has to be it," Rena said.

"You think?" Shugo replied, though not cruelly. They flung open the doors and found a large creature with patches of data and purple on its skin. One of those files had to be here, it had to. Erika could just feel it (there's also the added knowledge that whenever there's a corrupt monster, there's bound to be something it's hiding).

Balmung and Rena hung back as the two Twin Blades ran forward and hacked away at the creature, being the only two that could damage the monster in any way. Shugo ran back and forth, far and near, judging the best time to use the bracelet around his wrist while Erika slashed and cut at it continuously, never straying too far. She spun, slashed at the creature and ended up behind it to perform a special move, taking off just enough points for Shugo to hold up his wrist and yell, "Data Drain!"

Instantly the creature turned into something to weak to pay attention to, which Rena took care of easily, while Erika made her way to the blue treasure chest that had appeared. As she had expected, a strange file name appeared as she sifted through her items. "Well, try it out, open it," Balmung said, though it seemed that the other two had wanted to say the exact same thing.

Erika took a deep breath and opened the file…nothing. "Well, that was unexpected," Balmung said, bemused.

"I thought something really weird would happen," Shugo whined.

"Maybe it's because we used Data Drain to get it, instead of letting Erika just destroy the monster outright," Rena attempted to be reasonable. Either way, nothing had happened so the group made their way back to Mac Anu where they split up the party and went their separate ways.

Meanwhile, Erika stared at her hands and took a deep breath. Had she always been able to do this? To smell the soothing rivers of Mac Anu and to feel the warm breeze against her face and fluttering through her hair…she couldn't recall ever being able to do that before, but she kept this new knowledge to herself and logged out of the game.


	16. Convince Me to Leave and Maybe I'll Stay

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 16.0

**Convince Me to Leave and Maybe I'll Stay**

new topic posted 5.7.06

* * *

The dark-haired teenager flung herself onto her bed and became greatly annoyed when she bounced right back (admittedly, bounciness is a wonderful thing). She groaned and fell over onto the mattress, this time only bouncing centimeters, still managing to stay on the furniture rather than her feet. She played with the paper bracelet around her wrist, contemplating with only the slightest amusement, how she could get it off without scissors (if you've ever worn those hospital bracelets you'd understand, those things are built to last).

"Erika! Do you want anything to eat? Do you want to take a nap or something?" her adopted mother called from the bottom of the staircase at the same time as an annoying ring echoed inside her head.

"I'm fine!" the girl yelled back, focusing on the sound in her head to check her e-mail; that was what it was after all. It always gave her a headache afterwards, the sound not the checking her mail. Erika had been expecting another message from Koto, who had been contacting her most of all her friends these past few days (I just made it sound like I don't have a life, didn't I…contrary to popular belief, I actually do).

So, she was surprised to find a message, not from Koto, but from another outcast of 'The World': Death.

Not feeling like getting up and logging in through her computer, Erika simply closed her eyes and entered the game from where she lay on her bed. As she opened her eyes in the bustling city of Mac Anu, just as a gondola passed beneath her under the bridge, she looked around. This was where she wanted to be. Not that other place. What was the point in going back?

She caught sight of her friend out of the corner of her eye but ignored him and disappeared into the crowd. Something in the back of Erika's mind made her feel guilty (see, that's why I worked so hard to get rid of my conscience long ago…it's such a nuisance, really), but she ignored it (I have taught her well) and maintained her place in the crowd.

The girl had no idea how much time she had passed in 'The World', traveling from root town to root town, from area to area. Leveling up, relaxing, and best of all, she was not constantly being hassled by her 'parents' about her health. There were no constant hospital trips, nothing. But, she did realize that a great deal of time had passed (as to where she slept at night, I know you people are curious because I was too when I found out about all this, she _somehow_ got the money to rent an apartment!). Despite the fact that time ran differently in the game than outside of it, a day was still counted in twenty four hour periods, at least in the root towns. Everywhere else, time was completely disregarded.

A few days later, Erika was arguing with the NPC (non-player character, in this case the scary, kind of annoying, generic shopkeeper) over the price and quality of a pair of blades she was thinking of buying (people usually can't haggle, but because Erika's got that freaky connection thing with the game, somehow she can do it). "Listen, that's way too much for these swords. They aren't nearly good enough quality, I could stock up on all my other supplies with the price you're asking for these things! Come on, you can afford to lower it…"

"Of course he can," the white-haired girl jumped as the voice from behind her sent shivers down her spine. She knew who it was, and she knew that tone of voice.

Erika grinned as she turned around to greet her friend, "Death, long time no see!" she exclaimed, pretending as if it had been the fault of some freak incident IRL rather than her avoiding him in the game.

The Player Killer raised an eyebrow (something that seriously annoys me for the simple reason that I still can't do it!) and placed his hands on his hips. "It wouldn't have been such a long time if you had returned my messages."

"I've been busy!" In a way, she had. Busy beating up monsters in 'The World,' busy raising Grunties, busy trying to get her rent for that stupid apartment (though I can't understand how she got it in the first place)…very busy indeed.

Erika tried to lose him as she weaved her way through the busy streets, this being one of the busiest servers, and especially at this time of day. Unfortunately, it didn't work (hello…Player Killer, he tracks people…that's what he does, please don't tell me you forgot that). "You worried me," (I think I'm going to have a heart-attack, Mr. Ruthless-Player-Killer worried about another person's well-being?), "you've always returned my messages when I sent them before, what's up?"

The truth was, Death was the only one she had not been in contact with. All her other friends in 'The World' had spoken with her at least once since that day a week or so ago that she decided to stay in the game. Was there some reason she had been purposely avoiding him? No, of course not, it wasn't like she held any grudge against him or anything (oh, but I sure do!). "Nothing, alright?" Erika snapped, "I'm fine!"

The boy gave her a satisfied smile, "Liar," he said. Alright, she was a bit obvious…

Erika gave a sigh and ran her long, thin fingers through her white hair. "I've just been having some trouble back home." Death said nothing, but the Long Arm raised an eyebrow and flicked his wrist in indication for her to continue. "I'm sick, alright."

The dark character stared in surprise and took a step back (my moment of glory, I only wish someone had taken a picture for me to see Mr. Calm-And-Cool taken aback). Apparently, he hadn't been expecting that kind of answer, then again, not many people generally do (though, not surprisingly, that kind of gaming is fairly common). "You're one of those then?" One of the players who are in the game because it's the only place in which they can be…not unwell (normal, I meant to say normal).

"Yeah, I'm one of them," the white-haired Twin Blade snapped back. Erika stopped and sighed again, shrugging her shoulders and preparing to walk off. But her dramatic, huffy exit was blocked off by Death. "I'm not in the mood now…"

The girl tried to side-step her friend, but failed when he stepped in the same direction continuously, as if he could read her movements (but I'm not going to give him the benefit of saying that he could, he doesn't deserve that kind of praise). "Answer a few questions and I'll let you go."

Erika sat onto the ground and crossed her legs before looking up at the boy who remained standing (probably for the effect, egoistic jerk that he is…he should be more shy and modest, like me). "Ask away."

The dark-haired, dark-eyed boy didn't even bother raising an eyebrow this time (so we little people aren't worth the effort?) when he crossed his arms over his chest and stood firmly blocking the exit to the open, and incredibly busy, streets to ask his question. "Are you the sick girl who can't remember her past?" (Leave it to people such as him to lack my finesse in the art of interrogation.) "The one who went into a coma a while ago…?"

"There are probably lots of people who fit that description," (not).

"Not," (we actually thought the same thing, shoot me now), "just answer the question."

"Harsh. Fine, I'll answer. Yeah, I am that 'sick girl who can't remember,' as you put it." (I'm not the only one that thinks he needs to smooth his technique, not that he'll ever be as good as yours truly). Erika stood up and brushed the dust off her white skirt, her fingers feeling for her blades to make sure they were securely sheathed. "Is that it?"

Death shook his head, his black hair falling into his dark eyes which gazed at her unwaveringly. "No. I wanted to tell you to go back. You know, to the real world."

The white-haired girl stared at him for a moment (is the absurdity that he knows about her IRL lost to everyone except me?) before saying, "How did you know all that?" (Someone else who noticed, wonderful…took you long enough, girl.)

The ironic smile that usual shone behind the boy's dark eyes disappeared. "My Mom's a nurse at the hospital you go to. If you didn't want people to find out, you shouldn't have used your real name as your username," the boy said seriously, noting with faint interest the flush that was forming on Erika's cheeks at his berating her.

The other character shot him a cold, blue-eyed glare that did not seem to faze him at all (that surprise from before…yeah, once in a life time opportunity there). "If you know about me, then you should know why I don't want to go back. I'm tired of people always treating me like I'm about to fall apart. I'm tired of constantly going to the hospital for stupid tests that tell doctors nothing apart from the fact that they can't figure out what's wrong" (I never liked doctors and hospitals, myself).

"I know why, but I also don't," (confusing?) Death replied simply. When Erika stared at him confusedly, the boy brought out his weapon and leaned comfortably against the pole as he continued. "There are so many people back in the world outside of this one that care about you. They're worried. You've been in a coma since you first stopped answering my e-mails."

"They don't care…"

"Yes, they do. They're afraid for you because they love you and they don't want to lose you," (Mr. Uncaring being all sweet and sentimental…aw…someone get me a garbage can, I'm about to throw up). "Besides," he added with a wink, "if you keep doing this, they'll just tighten their hold on you if you do ever have to leave."

The boy grinned and his companion's expression followed, now they were two almost identical smiles. "Alright, fine. But I've got one condition…" The other player gave her a look clearly indicating what he was thinking (namely: what kind of condition is this and is this really worth it?). "We're going to an area and beating it first. And I get all the treasure at the bottom."

"Deal," Death replied, shaking the girl's elegant hand in his own much larger one.

* * *

Sorry about the long pause…I'm still writing, and will be for a long time, as it's what I love to do. And I'm still writing this story, I don't want to stop until I'm finished unless I'm forced to.

Let me get down to the point. Reason of absence (described in three letters or less): SAT. Or really…described in four words: SATs and obsessive parents. But one of the many tests of evil are done, so I'll have a little more time (hopefully) to write. Thanks for sticking with me. And once again, I'm sorry about the long wait for such a bad chapter.


	17. Characters

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 16.5

**In Case You've Forgotten**

new topic posted 5.10.06

* * *

Koto here, again; it's been a while since you've heard from me, no? I know you must have missed me so much. I've missed you worshipping me…I mean; I've missed you all, too. Do to the request of a reader, I won't be saying names (Ashen Phoenix), I'll be including a special character profile chapter, for all of you silly people out there that have forgotten us.

I've been planning on doing this for a while, though. Really…honestly…fine, don't believe me if you don't want to. But I can find you…Anyway, yes, I have been planning on doing this. So why have I not? Simple, really. Because I wanted to wait until the whole talk about the hospital between Erika and Death. And if you don't know what I'm talking about…then shame on you, you haven't read and you must go back to the beginning. Koto's word is law!

Note: There is a reason there are no last names on here. What might that be? You dare to question the great and powerful Koto? Alright, I'll humor you with an answer before squashing you like bugs! Ahem, there are no last names because I don't feel like including them.

Thank you.

* * *

**Erika**

Real Name: Erika

Online Name: Erika (I know, it lacks creativity as I've often told her…oops, sorry for interrupting; won't happen again, I promise)

Age: 16

Appearance (IRL): She has long brown-black hair that hangs to the small of her back, accentuated by dark brown Asian-like eyes. She's also incredibly short with a round, childlike face, giving her the illusion of appearing fourteen. Although in many ways she looks Asian, she has many undeniably Caucasian qualities, including: pale skin and freckles.

Appearance (online): In 'The World,' Erika takes on a completely different appearance. In contrast to the dark hair and dark eyes she has in real life, in the game she has long white hair and light, clear blue eyes. She wears all white, which means: a short white tank-top that reveals her light blue tattooed stomach (which I never really mention in the story, but feel like I should mention it here to be as in depth as possible), and a long white skirt that drags along the ground without catching the dust.

Class: Twin Blade

History: Erika can't remember anything before three years ago, meaning from before she was thirteen. The people she lives with, currently, openly admit that they are not her parents, in fact, Erika even remembers meeting them. They found her along the side of the road and managed to legally adopt the girl. The family is well-off, and Erika knows they care about her, but they tend to smother her because, aside from the unfortunate amnesia, she also has a physical illness that is the cause of frequent visits to the hospital.

**Koto**

Real Name: Kotoko

Online Name: Koto (at least it's a little more creative than Erika's)

Age: 15

Appearance (IRL): I (darn it, I'm supposed to say 'she,' aren't I?) –she has short pure brown hair and pure brown eyes with no other words to describe them. Just, the perfect brown of the crayon labeled 'brown' in the box. She's also fairly tall, towering just about a head over Erika IRL. Her skin is your average Caucasian white and she's thin with long limbs.

Appearance (online): Rare though it is, Koto's appearance (that feels so odd to write) is identical to her appearance offline, albeit the drastic change in clothing and the tattoo (Ah, right; hold on, I'll get there). Her brown hair and brown eyes remain unchanged, though online there is a light yellow-orange tattoo around her left eye and running down the side of her face to her chin. She wears a black tank top with a large gold belt and baggy black pants. She also has a thin gold band wrapped around her upper arm (right).

Class: Heavy Blade/Hacker

History: Koto happens to be the one and only child of Helba the Hacker, though she would never reveal her mother's real name (too bad for all you curious suckers out there trying to get it out of me). She doesn't like to reveal too much about her real life (once again, too bad) but she will grace you with a few revelations about herself. Koto is a talented young hacker who aspires to (more than anything at the moment) surpass her mother in the art. She also has an adorable little Chihuahua who will be turning two years old in a few months (not that it has any importance to the story, I just want to brag about my little angel). Oh, did I forget to mention her incredible modesty?

**Death**

Real Name: Robert

Online Name: Death (once again, we are lacking in the creativity department)

Age: 17

Appearance (IRL): This guy (whose name I shall not say more than is absolutely necessary), has dark hair and dark eyes, as well as dark tanned skin. A lot like his character in the game, no? Tall and slim, but noticeably strong with a fairly feminine face and build.

Appearance (online): He still has that earlobe length, messy black hair and dark brown, almost black, eyes along with the tanned, dark skin. He's still tall and slim, and apparently strong with a fairly feminine face and build. He wears a long-sleeved black shirt that is missing the right arm to reveal the black tattoos running down his skin. He also has 'The World's' usual fairly tight pants and stomach-revealing shirt. The pants are black, of course, with red at the bottom to make it distinguishable from the black slipper-like shoes.

Class: Long Arm/Player Killer

History: This guy is the oldest of two siblings whose mother works as a nurse at the same hospital which Erika and her 'family' frequent often. In fact, the two have met a few times IRL, though the girl does not know it. So, that leaves the question of why the son of a nurse would become a Player Killer in the game. He has no reason, he's just fascinated by it, especially since it isn't real. Even if it were real, though, no one's quite sure if that would make much of a difference.

**Amaya**

Real Name: Naoko

Online Name: Amaya

Age: 17

Appearance (IRL): Just like in the game, this one (I will also refrain from using her name as much as possible as well) stands with a slight hunch in her back. Differences being: she has shoulder-length auburn hair and hazel eyes. Despite her lack of good posture, this one also towers at least a head above our petite heroine.

Appearance (online): This one still has that hunch when she stands, but in the game she has chin-length chocolate brown hair and chocolate brown eyes, along with your standard Caucasian white skin (like yours truly). She wears earthy colors: dull brown boots; a light brown top with long, loose sleeves; a short brown skirt and silver hoops around her neck. Her light brown tattoos climb up from her right ankle and stop about half-way to her knee.

Class: Wave Master

History: Nothing interesting, really. She was good friends with Claire even before she started playing the game and helped convince the other girl to aid in the creation of the current law-keepers of 'The World,' the Twilight Brigade.

**Claire**

Real Name: Estelle

Online Name: Claire

Age: 16

Appearance (IRL): Claire has long blonde hair, about the same length as Erika's hair outside the game, which essentially turns white in the summer. She has your generic Caucasian skin with a bit of a twist, a slight tan, and long slim limbs and brown eyes. She's tall, maybe an inch shorter than I am (I mean, than Koto is, since I'm supposed to be all-seeing and all-knowing).

Appearance (online): Just like in real life, she has long blonde hair, but unlike in real life, her eyes are a blue that sometimes fades to green. She wears a black corset-like shirt over a loose white collared shirt and pants with the entire work of Romeo and Juliet handwritten in different inks and styles. Her tattoo is a similar blue-green to her eyes and wraps around her wrist.

Class: Blade Master/Twilight Brigade

History: She was good friends with Amaya and was the one who convinced the other girl to join the game, who in turn convinced Claire to help the twins establish the Twilight Brigade. Yes, she is one of the leaders of the Twilight Brigade and has the power behind it to make sense of the title. She has connections with the CC Corp because of it, good for her.

* * *

Don't worry, expect a real update (meaning along the lines of what's actually going on in the story) coming up soon. Thanks for being patient with me!


	18. When the Sky Becomes Angry

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 17.0

**And the Land Will Disappear When the Sky Becomes Angry**

new topic posted 5.13.06

* * *

This is an important message from the amazing and talented Heavy Blade, Koto. I win at life. No, that isn't the message, that's just something I felt like pointing out to you in case you've all forgotten my greatness throughout the length of the story. It has been a while since I've reminded you.

But that still isn't my point. I am sorry to say that the great and wonderful Koto, whom we all know you worship every night before you go to sleep, must take a short break from writing. Fear not, my dears. Though I know you shall all be lost without my expert guidance, my friends have agreed to take good care of you, and good care of our soon-to-be legendary tale.

And though I know you shall all be desolate without me, I hope you will be satisfied with my temporary replacement story-tellers. I won't tell you who they are, but I will tell you there's more than one…and that you already know them. And I will not tell you what order they'll be writing in, because that would give away who they are.

That's my note: I'm being forced away from my computer and will not be able to write for the next few weeks. My counterparts have promised to pick up the slack, and if they don't I give you all full permission to beat them. Or throw pineapples at them…but only pineapples…I was thinking watermelons, but I thought that might do some permanent damage and though my conscience has nothing against that, I do still need them for the time being.

When we last left our heroine (not me, the other heroine), she was being comforted by Death (I can't be the only one who things that sounds odd). He convinced her that the life she wanted so desperately to leave behind was worth going back to. And then, for reasons beyond even my comprehension, they formed a party and teleported to one of the many areas of 'The World.' And that is where we shall continue…

* * *

Erika and Death gated into a large, open area that was characteristic of many places in 'The World.' The instant they did, something appeared in the corner of Erika's vision. The girl jumped to the side in time to dodge a blow that would have otherwise dealt a great deal of damage. On her other side, Death had leapt up and slashed down at the monster, "Saved your life," he said with a grin. "I guess you owe me."

"I gave you those experience points, you owe me," the Twin Blade replied, with a similar smile on her pale face. "Or, we can make it even…" she suggested as another group of monsters ran towards them from behind Death. The boy noticed where her gaze was pointed and turned, switching weapons for the different techniques it would provide.

Meanwhile, Erika ran forward, her dark blades appearing in her hands, and quickly unleashed a barrage of techniques. When both the players were done, and had finished opening their well-deserved chests, the white-clad girl pointed to something in the distance. "Do you want to go in?"

"The dungeon?"

"Where else?"

"Let's go then," Death replied, leading the way into the dungeon. It was dimly lit, as all dungeons in the game were (and still are, you'd think they'd do something about that lighting problem they have). The boy pulled a fairy's orb out of seemingly thin air and a full map of the dungeon appeared in the corner of Erika's view. "It's a long one, I hope they have good items at the end."

Unfortunately (or whatever) they never made it to the end. The two walked into the first room and were immediately surrounded by a group of people with the band on their upper arms that represented the Twilight Brigade. Death cursed under his breath while Erika looked around them in surprise.

The boy took a step backwards and pushed Erika back the way they had come while he followed behind her. "Sorry, I guess they're after me. Player Killers are never very welcome members of 'The World," he said as he continued to push her out of the dungeon.

But he stopped short when they had gotten out and were, once again, surrounded by members of the illustrious (don't know what it means, but it sounds good) Twilight Brigade. Death continued cursing, now not-quite-so-under-his-breath, but stopped in surprise at what one of the Twilight Brigade members was saying. "You're Erika? Please come with us…"

"Why me?" the white-clad girl asked curiously, pointing at herself as she spoke.

A pair of familiar looking PCs (player characters) stepped out from the crowd: twins with bright red hair and extremely similar character designs. "Because we can't figure out how you're doings the things you're doing," one of them said (wonderful choice of words, buddy…then again, I'm the one writing it…never mind).

The other twin smiled, "It's thanks to an unknown source that we've been able to locate you."

"Someone by the alias of Sky…"

Sky…the girl from before, and the 'replacement program' that those two men were talking about in the video, the first file she and Koto had retrieved. What did this 'Sky' person, or program (or whatever she/it was) have against Erika?

While she was lost in her thoughts, Death pushed her aside and started trying to fight his way through the crowd, but he was quickly outmatched (ha, ha) and knocked onto the ground and in an instant both teenagers were swarmed upon by the Twilight Brigade while the twins watched with identical smiles.


	19. A Confusion of Loyalties

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 18.0

**A Confusion of Loyalties**

new topic posted 5.22.06

* * *

Koto warned you, I assume, that she would be MIA for the next few weeks. Which leaves it up to us to continue our story, or you would otherwise suffer a lack of entertaining posts to make checking the Message Board worthwhile.

My name is Claire and I'll be your narrator for the duration of the week. Please fasten your seat belts and listen carefully as I instruct you of what to do in case of emergency on the flight.

Sorry, I'm being cheesy, I'm aware of that. I won't be telling the story next week, so watch out for your next narrator. I'm not allowed to tell, by threat from Koto. You'll just have to keep reading to find out. Oh, and Koto, if and when you read this, I'm sorry for always yelling at you for interjecting. I've realized, after having tried to write these first-hand experiences from an outside viewer, that it's much more difficult not to include one's own thoughts.

* * *

Erika's vision cleared to take in a room that wasn't quite so clear. As far as she could tell the walls, floor, and ceiling were stone, like in a cave. But that was about as far as the limited light took her. Death was already awake, staring at her from where he sat in the corner of the 'room' with his legs crossed over each other. "Where are we and what happened?"

"Making coherent sentences, I see?" her companion said, unfurling himself from his rather comfortable looking position and walking over to the white-clad Twin Blade. "That's always a good sign. It doesn't look like they've done anything to your character yet…"

The girl gave him a blue-eyed glare as she stood up shakily while her knees quivered beneath the sudden weight. "Good thing they didn't, I'm still in the game," she knew Death would understand the meaning of what she was saying, the sole purpose of the choice of words being that she could not think of any other way to put it.

He understood, or so Erika surmised from the nod and the knowing glint in his almost-black eyes.

Light footsteps echoed just outside the door that the two players only noticed was there. "Are you two awake?" a familiar voice asked through a crack in the thick, dungeon-style wooden door. Without waiting for an answer, the speaker pushed open the door and sent a wave of light flooding through the dark room.

Erika shielded her eyes from the sudden change in light, though Death's character did not move. The benefits of not actually _being_ in the game, but only playing it. When her eyes had adjusted, or at least the number of colored dots in the corner of her vision had decreased dramatically enough for her to see, the girl recognized the form of a friend: Claire. "What are you doing here?"

"Twilight Brigade business," the girl shrugged, stepping in and closing the door behind her and returning the light back to its normal lack thereof. Erika waited another moment for her eyes to adjust yet again, if she hadn't known better she would have thought Claire was doing this on purpose.

Death stepped up beside Erika, dwarfing the much smaller character, and placed a hand protectively on her shoulder. "She didn't do anything…"

"Don't worry," the Twin Blade interjected, "she's a friend…"

The blonde shook her head though neither of the others knew to which statement it was directed at. Thankfully, she made it clear a moment later. "I'm not here for you, Death. And yes, I know who you are. Death, player killer, Long Arm, active for eleven months one week and two days…No, the reason you're here is because of Erika."

Erika shot her friend a confused glance and waved her hands slightly in the air in front of her, egging the other girl on…hopefully. It worked. "We received an anonymous e-mail speaking of a character who, at times, appeared to defy all laws of the game. I'm right in assuming that you didn't log into the game by normal means? And am I right in thinking that you haven't logged out for quite some time?"

"Yeah…" the white-haired girl replied with a solemn nod.

Her companion glared. "Why did you tell her the truth?" he demanded in a tone that would have been considered almost childish had it come from anyone aside from him, Koto for instance.

The other shrugged, trying to make the situation appear as if it were nothing. "Because she's a friend?" she answered, her voice rising slightly at the end as if turning the statement into a question.

The blonde Blade Master stepped backwards and leaned her back against the thick wooden door, making sure it stayed closed and that no unwelcome visitors should show up. "You're friends with a Player Killer, then, Erika? I suppose he can't be entirely bad, then. How about we do this," the expression on her face was serious as her blue-green eyes swept over both the characters standing in front of her, "you tell me everything that's going on and I'll let you go. We just can't let the other members of the Twilight Brigade know…"

Erika grinned; she knew her friend would come through for her. "Alright…" Due to the laziness of your narrator, however, the girl's explanation will not be repeated here. "And that's that…"

Claire had looked thoughtful throughout the entire explanation and even when the other girl had stopped talking, the pensive look remained. "That certainly is intriguing," she said finally after such a long moment's pause that Erika was beginning to assume the girl had left in the middle of the rather one-sided conversation to get a sandwich or something IRL. "I'd like to know a bit more about these Fragments, and this Sky character…or program as that seems most likely considering what you've mentioned about the long-disappeared Aura.

"But I don't think I could find out this information on my own," a mischievous smile bloomed on her naturally red lips, "so I'll just let the two of you out on one condition." At the worried look on the Twin Blade's face, the blonde gave a short, yet somehow still elegant and mysterious sounding, laugh. "You have to keep me updated. Anything and everything that goes on, deal?"

Erika laughed as well, and nodded. But she had completely forgotten that they were still in Death's presence. "Doesn't anyone want my say in the matter?" And thought the looks both girls gave him clearly said 'no,' he decided to give it any way. "We could get out of here on our own, without your help, Twilight Brigade."

"Relax, Death…" the white-haired girl smiled and placed a hand on the blonde girl's shoulder. "Like I've said, Claire's a friend of mine. Let's just get out of here before she gets into too much trouble with the rest of the Twilight Brigade…" and she stepped away from one friend to pull her other friend down the hallway through which Claire had come through.

When they reached the end and burst out of the cave's opening into the clear, crisp open air with the bright sun temporarily blinding them, yet again, Erika felt something tackle into her and knock the wind out of her. "Death! What do you think you're doing?" She asked, her heart racing for fear that, in his anger, he would let his Player Killer side loose.

"Stay still, little ones," a voice rang around them. Erika's eyes adjusted fairly slowly and she looked up at the image of a young girl floating in the sky, glaring angrily at the characters piled on top of each other. The white-clad Twin Blade shoved her companion off of her, though she needn't have done it as he was standing up on his own to brush the light sand off his dark clothes. "I deserve to stay! I won't disappear! I won't let her come back!"

The two players jumped in opposite directions as something blasted at them from one of the little girl's outstretched hands. Erika would recognize that voice anywhere: Sky. The Twin Blade pulled her weapons out of the sheaths at her sides, but before she could do anything, Sky chuckled and was gone. "Sky?" Death asked. He didn't need an answer, it was obvious from the look on the girl's face.

Claire chose that convenient moment to race out of the cave herself, sword ready to slash at whatever was there. But Sky had already gone, and all that remained were Death and Erika standing lengths apart with weapons drawn and facing each other.

* * *

In case any of you readers have read or seen anything about the new series, .hack/ROOTS, I'd just like to say a few things. When I thought up the concept and began writing this fic, everything was original except for the classes, Aura, and 'The World' itself. Coincidences between my fic and ROOTS are, well…coincidental. Such as: the Twilight Brigade, Aura's disappearance, the old version of the game being lost (and this being a new, rebooted version of 'The World').


	20. Falling Upward Toward the Sky

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 19.0

**Falling Upward Toward the Sky**

new topic posted 5.28.06

* * *

Now it's my turn to tell our story, please treat me nicely. My name's Amaya and like I said, I'll be the one writing next. I haven't been in the story for quite a while, how upsetting. But the fact that I'm narrating this time means that it's also time I'm finally back again. Oops, I guess I shouldn't have said that. Don't tell Koto, she'd be angry with me if she knew I was giving a spoiler at the beginning of the post.

Oh, and just because I've already given a little spoiler, here's another one: your next author is one who seems to be untrusting and has all the appearances of someone to fear, but is really just a big teddy bear.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Claire yelled after the few moments it took for the scene to register in her mind. "I let you out of our prison area and immediately you two are going to fight each other? If you PK her, I'm going to delete your character and block your access to the game!" She turned on Death who did not appear fazed by her shouting and decided to plug a finger into his ear as he leaned against his weapon, the point of which was now dug deeply into the sand.

Erika ran to where both her friends stood and waved her hands frantically, her black blades disappearing. "It isn't what it looks like, Claire. It was Sky, she was here!" The blonde opened her mouth to speak, but before the thought could form into words, she stopped and her eyes became dull. "Is she checking her e-mail?"

The boy smiled inwardly and shook his head, pulling his finger out of his ear and flinging off whatever it was that may have caught in his virtual nail. He interestedly inspected his nail for any remaining residue before speaking, "I have to say, you have interesting taste in friends. Myself included, of course. Who have I met so far? The hacker…" he ticked them off on his sufficiently clean fingers, "I've heard of the legendary Rena, Shugo and Balmung," they apparently got one finger combined, "and now the neurotic founder of the Twilight Brigade…"

Suddenly coming back to herself in 'The World,' Claire slammed her fist against the back of the boy's head. "Neurotic?" She said, smiling grimly and cracking her knuckles. "Be careful what you say, I am one of the 'neurotic founders of the Twilight Brigade' after all…" she turned her attention to the other girl, who was staring wide-eyed at both of her friends. Somehow it seemed as if Death's presence brought out a side of a person's personality that they didn't normally seem to show. "I just got an e-mail for Twilight Brigade business. An area's just been hit by a virus."

The dark Long Arm pulled himself up off the ground and dusted the light sand off his black attire, his eyebrows raised as his only sign of showing interest. Erika on the other hand, looked wholeheartedly interested. "I guess we've made Sky angry. What do we do now? Is the area blocked off? I mean, I know someone who could get us in…"

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Claire said, stretching her arms out in front of her and cracking her knuckles again, but in a different way this time. "Neurotic Twilight Brigade, remember?" Was she not going to let the 'neurotic' thing die down? "Exclusive access comes with founding the only police force in the game.

"Let me just contact Amaya, she said something about having found an interesting new Long Arm weapon that she didn't want to get rid of." Death's eyebrows lifted until they were hidden, more so than usual, beneath his long dark bangs. A weapon, that was certainly one of the few ways to catch his interest. Leave it to Claire to already have something like that figured out.

A few moments later, the brown-clad Wave Master made her way towards the small group from a distance, which looked longer due to the heat's haze. She was slow about it, there was and is no such thing as a fast-moving Wave Master, and had just climbed her way over the last dune when she slumped over onto her staff. "What's so urgent, Claire?" she asked, still having not noticed the two others.

"Amaya, this is Death, the Player Killer I was complaining to you about the other day…"

The boy swept a graceful bow, a smile playing on his naturally dark lips, "I'm glad to know I was giving the Twilight Brigade a run for its money."

The blonde smiled back, "Yes, you have. But that doesn't matter now. We could really do with that weapon you found the other day, Amaya."

Amaya shook her head vigorously and refused to take out her weapon, straightening up and holding her hand in front of Claire's face. "Stop and go back, please. You want me to give a weapon to a Player Killer?"

Claire nodded and without any other questions, Amaya rifled through her items and pulled out a Long Arm weapon that was black like the all the other weapons around it: Claire's sword, Amaya's staff, and Erika's twin blades. It left a trail behind it as it moved through the air and the boy's almost satanic grin was reflected in weapon's onyx blade as it took it gently from the girl's hand and spun it to test it out. "It's a good weapon," it was the highest compliment he was willing to give.

"Now that we have all that settled," the Twin Blade said, soundlessly tapping her bare feet impatiently against the sand, "can we get going? I want to figure out what Sky is up to, and what exactly she is."

The blonde nodded and the party of four disappeared in rings of golden light as they gated out to a different area.

* * *

But they certainly were not expecting what they were greeted with when they arrived: an apparently perfectly normal area but for the fact that the group was now surrounded once again by members of the Twilight Brigade with the red-headed twins standing in front, their arms hooked together as they leaned against one another.

"Claire! What are you doing with the convicts?" they asked in unison.

The girl tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder and the weapon she had taken out just before gating into this area had disappeared while the others, who had also taken out their weapons, did the same. "I received an e-mail that this area had a virus, I was just about to close it…"

"We just got a message saying that the convicts would be escaping to this place. It was signed 'Sky.' The name sounded shady, we even ran a check with the CC Corp system but we couldn't find anything. We thought we'd check it out any way…"

"Sky!" Erika shouted and tried to step forward but her way was blocked by the sharp points of blades pointed at her stomach. "Sky contacted you! What's her problem with us?" Was it with 'us,' though, or just with her? The Twin Blade was getting the feeling that this Sky character was only targeting her. But why?

Claire shooed the confused looking Twilight Brigade members slightly more out of her way and continued her conversation with the twin characters as if Erika had not interrupted. "Sky…I see, so this must have been a set-up. I suppose that means I'm beginning to look like a threat to whoever this 'Sky' person is. Well then, I'll just make myself more of a threat. The Twilight Brigade's been fun, but it's time I did a little bit of investigation on my own. I guess I'll see you around."

"What are you saying, Claire?"

"I'm quitting the Twilight Brigade…"


	21. A Golden Skeleton Key

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 20.0

**A Golden Skeleton Key**

new topic posted 6.11.06

* * *

That annoying little brat's hint has to have been the stupidest thing I have ever heard coming out of her mouth. Considering how she will probably be reading this, however, I know I shouldn't be saying that. But considering how often I have to smile and act nicely around her because of Erika, I think I have the right to complain every once in a while.

In case you haven't guessed it already, I'm Death. It feels so odd to have to introduce myself over half-way through a story in which I am already introduced. But, that's the way things work and I did promise my little play-mate (aka: Koto) and Erika. Koto makes such a wonderful little toy, she gets worked up so easily. It provides endless entertainment.

Ah, I'm sorry, I seem to have lost the entire point of this 'forward.' I've introduced myself; check. I've rambled for a good amount of space; check. I think that's it. If I was to continue the stories of my entertaining little charades, I would have to continue until I died, or until my tongue shriveled up like a prune and fell off.

* * *

Koto sat in the café, waiting for her friend while taking occasional sips of hot chocolate, her brown eyes never leaving the door and her head snapping every time she heard the ringing bells that signaled another person walking in or walking out. Finally, the white-clad teenager pushed open the door, her sky blue eyes scanning the room until they fell upon her friend. The Twin Blade gave the other girl a slight wave before pulling an empty chair from a nearby table to where her friend was sitting.

The brunette slammed her mug so hard against the table that hot chocolate splashed onto the table and onto her clothes which an instant later were clean again. She didn't feel a thing, though Erika winced when the steaming liquid made contact with her pale skin. "I haven't heard from you lately, Koto. What's up?"

"Just wanted to catch up with an old friend," the Heavy Blade said with a smile that faded a few moments later when her brown eyes glared at the other girl. "I hope you realize I wasn't being serious. I've been off the game for a while trying to gather any useful information I could find on the whole 'Sky' issue."

"And?"

"And, I did find out a little. You know who Aura was, right?" Though the white-clad girl had already nodded her head in reply, the brunette continued as if she hadn't noticed, which wasn't exactly unlikely. "She was more than a program; the heart of the game. They said that sometimes, in times of crisis, Aura would give to a select player something called the 'Key of the Twilight.' I couldn't find any information on it, but everything I did find links back to your other friends. Shugo, Rena, Balmung…even my mom, but when I tried asking they wouldn't tell me anything." She frowned and continued, "Anyway, that's fairly irrelevant to our situation, I just thought it was interesting. Aura disappeared when they took the game offline a few years back but in order to put it back online, CC Corp realized they needed her to keep the game stable. So they made Sky as a temporary replacement for Aura until they could find her again, though it's pretty obvious none of that went as planned.

"I think what you're finding are the fragments of Aura, the keys to finding her, or maybe even pieces of the Key of the Twilight. And Sky wants to stop you because finding Aura would mean that she would become dispensable and CC Corp would delete her."

Erika felt almost bad for the girl whose image she had seen in the sky and whose voice had echoed in her head so many times. Almost; she remembered the angry look that was so often on the girl's face and the times that they had fallen in to traps or their lives, in the game, had been threatened. "So? Now what? Do we keep looking? Should we tell CC Corp?"

Koto shook her head, her brown eyes widening at the mention of the law-makers of the game. Good point: if Erika handed them the information, she'd have to hand them her sources, and that would endanger her friend. Never a good idea, exposing a hacker (I've done it once).

"Alright, no CC Corp. But that still doesn't answer the other questions. What should we do?"

The brunette smiled and waved her finger in front of the other girl's bright blue eyes, causing the Twin Blade to cross them awkwardly. "Don't doubt my greatness," Koto said haughtily, much the way she did many things. "I think it's you that Sky is after, so normally I'd tell you to choose what we're doing. But since I don't really trust you with my well-being, and if you grovel before my astounding wonderfulness, I might reconsider and give you some advice." A glare from the other girl was answer enough, "Alright, fine. Ruin all my fun. I also managed to find a new lead on a possible file fragment. Interested?"

* * *

"Remind me why _they_ had to come along?" Koto grumbled to the white-haired girl, looking back at the group standing behind them at the bottom of the sand dune.

It was a strange group: the dark player killer with a good-hearted smile on his lips and waving at the two girls that where looking back at him, the Wave Master who stood slightly apart from the other two and often shot them uncomfortable glances, and the blonde former leader of the Twilight Brigade who stood good-naturedly beside the only boy. "Because they're my friends, and they're online. Besides, you don't even know Claire and Amaya and you're already assuming you won't like them."

Koto looked thoughtfully toward the sky before counting her points off on her fingers. "That guy is the most annoying person in the world. That girl," meaning Amaya, "will probably be the second-most annoying, I hate people like that, and the other one," meaning Claire, "is a member of the Twilight Brigade. When you're running from someone for long enough, you learn to recognize them easily."

"You're judging," Erika said to the brunette before calling down to the rest of her friends to join them. "Guys: this is Koto. Koto, this is Amaya," Erika waved her hand in the Wave Master's direction, "and this is Claire," she said, finally introducing the blonde who bowed slightly. "Since you all pretty much know each other: Death is the player killer, Claire was one of the founders of the Twilight Brigade, and Koto here is a hacker and daughter of Helba…"

The Heavy Blade smacked the white-haired girl in the back of her head. "Do you have to tell everyone?"

"But your reactions are too much fun," Death answered with a smile and received a glare in response. "And that was the expected response…" The brunette probably would have hit him, too, if she hadn't known that the boy was a Player Killer to be reckoned with.

But Erika had stopped paying attention after her not-quite-so-well-deserved smack in the head. She heard a faint whispering in her head, a voice she recognized well but would never usually help her in any way. "Guys, maybe we should get out of here…" The looks she received in response told her that only two out of the other four understood: Koto and Death. "I hear her…Sky; she's telling us to go…that way," she said, pointing slightly to her left.

"Then that's where we're going," Koto shouted, her weapon appearing out of mid-air in her hands while the others did the same. "If that's where Sky wants us to go, then there must be a clue or something."

"Or a trap…" Claire muttered, but the excited brunette could not hear her and the group followed the Heavy Blade until they realized that she had no idea where she was going. Then, they followed the white-clad Twin Blade who was the only one who could hear Sky's voice.

A glowing blue treasure chest stood atop a sand dune with the wind swirling around only it and nothing else. "Like I said…a trap…" the blonde said with a satisfied grin. Not that her being right benefited anyone, considering the circumstances.

Amaya shuffled through her items, "I'll get it," she said and the treasure chest immediately turned brown. She walked up to where the chest stood, but the wind knocked her back toward the group.

"Or maybe you won't," the Heavy Blade laughed and tried to get through as well. She, too was thrown backwards. "That kind of hurts…" she announced.

Death smiled, "Oh really? I never would have imagined. I guess it's my turn to go?" he asked. Without waiting for the answer he knew would have been coming anyway, the boy climbed up the hill only to be tossed back.

Claire smiled mysteriously, "I'm going to save my character the trouble of losing HP and just make the assumption that Erika is the only one who will be able to get through the storm. Would you do the honors, Erika?"

The white-haired girl mumbled something incoherently under her breath, the point of which was clearly transmitted. She closed her eyes and stumbled up the dune, preparing herself for the impact that she knew would be coming. She only made a different impact than she had been expecting. "Oof…" she had walked straight into the chest which was much larger than ordinary ones, standing high enough to have hit the middle of her stomach.

She turned around to look at her friends, but could not see them through the blowing sands. Instead, she took a deep breath and pulled open the chest; a file appeared in her inventory and when she opened it she began to glow and the wind evaporated. "Great, this is a useless file, I can control the weather!"

The others laughed to mask their disappointment and disappeared.

* * *

Note: That isn't really what the file does, that's just Erika's limited experience with it. Trust me, it'll do something else that should be revealed in the next chapter.


	22. Still Not Ready to Leave

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 21.0

**Still Not Ready to Leave**

new topic posted 6.27.06

* * *

It looks like I'm your last narrator; can you guess who it is? I should hope so, since there's no one left. AKA: it's uh…Erika. It feels so odd to address myself that way, especially since I haven't used the name in such a long time. Now, you may think that since this is pretty much my story, I'll be able to tell it best. Well…you're wrong. I can't tell this story well at all simply because it's my story, if that makes any sense. I was never much of a fan of autobiographies, or any kind of biographies for that matter.

On the up-side: Koto just sent me an e-mail and she'll be coming back in time for the next update. So you'll have your old narrator back, isn't that wonderful? And no, that was not sarcasm…alright, maybe just a little.

* * *

The black-haired teenager was reading through her e-mail with her head resting on the palm of her hand, her elbow firmly planted on her wooden desk. Most people would say it was an uncomfortable position due to where her computer lay, but not Erika. Somehow, she didn't seem to mind this stuff all that much any more. She used to, but lately…well, the girl was pushing her body more and more to annoy it just because it was getting harder and harder to do so.

She had received a message from Blamung, a picture of his avatar hanging just off the side of the screen. "There is news of another file fragment we thought you might be interested in. The area is supposed to be infected, though I'm sure you'll be able to handle it." The key words were a few lines down, ending in the word 'Graveyard.' That was never much of a confidence booster…

The girl checked her friends list to see who was online and smiled at the result before gently placing the headset over her brown-almost-black hair and entering the world of the game.

* * *

"What's this urgent business you called us here for," a tall, slightly hunched over Wave Master asked, leaning against her staff.

Erika had e-mailed everyone who was online, which included everyone except Balmung; Shugo; and Rena, and asked them to meet her in her favorite root town, the city of the sea as she liked to call it. She resisted the urge to say something incredibly corny; she would not become her father but that was an entirely different story. "Balmung sent me an e-mail last night, unfortunately I couldn't reply then," she had been busy the previous night, as Death very well knew. She had met him in the hospital and was fairly surprised to see that he looked almost exactly like his avatar in real life.

Koto grinned, "Let me guess, another file fragment?" Was it that obvious? Of course it was, why else would she have gathered the whole team? Erika nodded and the brunette's grin widened, "Wonderful, I was starting to wonder when we'd find another. It's been much too long, a week?"

"Two days, to be precise," the Blade Master responded with a smile.

The Heavy Blade was well-known amongst their little group for having a slight problem with her judgment of time. If nothing much was happening, she exaggerated, if a lot was going on, she shortened it a great deal. "Alright, so I'm not that great at this kind of stuff."

"Or you're horrible at it," said Death, also smiling.

"What is this, make fun of Koto time?" She smacked herself in the forehead for having ever said that. But from the grins exchanged by the other two characters, it was clear that it was exactly what they had been thinking.

Erika cleared her throat in an attempt at regaining some level of control of the situation, complete control over it would have been impossible. "Just grab hold of me, I found out something interesting about that last file…" exchanging odd glances, the other PCs placed their hands on the girl's shoulders, shuffling uncomfortably to make space, and suddenly they disappeared in a flash of golden light.

* * *

"That's handy," Koto said after the few moments it had taken her to regain her balance. "No need for a Chaos Gate, though personally I think I'd prefer it. My avatar's having some problems staying up straight."

The white-haired girl looked at her friend, her blue eyes widening with despair. "I'm sorry; I didn't think it would affect your avatars since it didn't do anything to mine."

Death placed a hand gently on the girl's head, the two of them made a nice contrast from each other. "Don't worry about it, she's just having problems because she's Koto."

He grinned at the Heavy Blade who shouted in response, "Oh? As if you aren't having problems, too! You're just using Erika as a support," and with that, she gracefully fell over onto her side.

The boy let an ugly grimace fall onto his features. So that was what he was doing. The white-haired teenager looked over at the two others, currently silent. They were leaning against each other, trying to keep their balance. "I'm sorry. Maybe we should go back and come in through a Chaos Gate."

"What's passed is past," Claire said knowledgeably. "We're already here." A good point; that they were. "Who did you say told you about this area?"

"Balmung," Erika asked, unsurprised by the effect the name had on her friends. Everyone had the same reaction to the man's name, so she was getting used to it. Though, one would think that after all this time, one of them would finally stop acting so strangely at the sound of his name. "He said it was supposed to be one of those infected areas but it seems normal."

And cue the abnormalities. The screen flickered and streams of data flowed upwards into the air from the ground around them. Patches of sky and earth disappeared in skins of purple flowing with data. "What were you saying about 'normal'?" Koto asked sarcastically while Erika was listening for the familiar voice she knew she'd hear. But it didn't come. Usually, when she entered an infected area, she immediately heard Sky's voice, and somehow she felt awkward when it wasn't there.

* * *

At the bottom of the dungeon, of course, they entered a room with violet smoke steaming through the cracks of the doors. That was never a good sign. The trip through the dungeon had certainly been an interesting one, with Erika's friends having slight balance trouble. It would have been almost laughable, if it hadn't made things so much more difficult. Now, the girl wondered how they would be able to handle an infected monster.

Despite their protests, and Amaya's complaints, they still had about as much control over their characters as when they had first appeared in the area. The Twin Blade still had her doubts about whether or not they should have left the area and then come back normally. "You guys ready?"

On a positive note, they had stopped relying on each other to keep standing. Finally, they could do what may have possibly passed as standing on their own. They were all on both feet, yes, but wobbling horribly. "Let's get this over with," Koto grumbled.

"There's no point asking," Amaya said, "we're about as ready as we can get considering." Though it was true, Koto and Death responded by giving the girl glares of equal ferocity. She didn't seemed to have noticed, thank goodness. The last thing they needed was an awkward fight amongst characters that could barely function properly.

Without waiting for more of an answer, and afraid that any more of an answer would start a fight, Erika flung open the door and stepped inside, shuddering slightly as the violet steam passed through her. Inside, waiting for them, was a creature with patches of violet data for skin. It turned to face the group and Erika was convinced that she caught a glimpse of what looked like a smirk before it returned to 'normal' and attacked.

With the others slightly incapacitated, the Twin Blade put it upon herself to defeat the monster alone. But tell that to the others, apparently they hadn't gotten the memo. The only one who stayed back was Amaya, and that was to cast both offensive and defensive spells. Not that anyone's attacks did much damage, at least no one's but Erika's. And she was spending most of her time checking the HP meters under her friend's avatars. They would not be dying because of how she had brought them into the area.

After the final blow, just as the creature was disappearing into a flow of data, a silver light floated into Erika's body. That was odd. Usually, they had to open a treasure chest to get the file, and then in turn open the file to have it harmonize with her character. Though, once again, this file appeared to do nothing.

* * *

Dark-haired, dark-eyed Erika rang the doorbell, holding a slightly crumpled piece of paper in her hand. This was the address Koto had given her and she certainly hoped this wasn't her friend's idea of a prank.

Koto opened the door wide after a few minutes of awkwardness following the bell and just when the other girl was turning around to leave. "You have no confidence in yourself whatsoever, I hope you're fully aware of that," the brunette said with a familiar, faintly lopsided grin.

"I am a very confident person, just not when it comes to stuff like this."

"You keep telling yourself that," joked Koto who pulled the shorter teenager into the house. "Mom!" she shouted, "we'll be in my room!"

A kindly voice responded from somewhere downstairs, though Erika could see no stairs leading downwards, "have fun. I'm making dinner right now…"

"So be prepared to get sick," Koto whispered to Erika before leading the girl up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Erika, with her much shorter legs, could not do such a thing and so much more slowly she followed her friend up a flight of stairs. Koto's room was as expected of any teenager, though it did have slight differences. There were posters with names and numbers Erika didn't even bother to comprehend, and so much clothes piled onto the floor that she wondered vaguely if there was a floor.

There were also pictures of people she had never seen or heard of taped to the walls and somewhere in the corner was a small piece of white paper, the only white on the walls, that said 'GOALS' in bold lettering. She brushed past Koto's computer, listening only partially to what her friend was saying, on her way to the paper. But as Erika walked past the computer, she was instantly surrounded by a glowing golden light not unlike that of a Chaos Gate.

"Um…Koto…is this normal?" she asked before disappearing inside 'The World.'


	23. Trick of the Sky

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

---

version 22.0

**Trick of the Sky**

new topic posted 9.1.06

---

I'm back, did you miss me? Why am I asking? Of course you missed me! You better have otherwise I'm going to block you from ever reading this topic again…I mean…

So, I'm back from the vacation of a nightmare. Horribly boring, but I _have_ been keeping tabs on what's been going on with this topic, thanks to Erika. And my dear Wave Master? You're right, I'm not at all pleased with you ruining the surprise…not at all pleased. When I get my hands on you…!

Um…I mean…How have you all been? I'm fine, thanks for asking. I might as well get back to the story, shouldn't I? I could always delete all that stuff I just said, make my life easier and all, but what would be the fun in that?

---

Erika logged into the popular internet game known as 'The World' for the first time that day. She had just returned home from school to her 'mother's' continuous worrying, as of late, and was itching to get back online (considering how she can log in from no matter where she is, I think it was very courteous of her to wait until her mother stopped speaking at least, which is much more than I could say I would have done myself).

A message for a new e-mail appeared on her screen and this one was, somewhat surprisingly, not from Koto or the others. Instead, it was from the legendary Neo-Dot-Hacker (I don't know if that's what they're called or not, I just think it has a nice ring to it) known as Shugo, insisting that she look up a new topic that had appeared earlier just that day (sometimes that boy's gaming schedule makes me think that he isn't from this country, despite the fact that he's on the Japanese server—does he skip school to go online?).

With nothing better to do, the girl exited and double-clicked the link that would take her to the message board and scanned the screen to follow Shugo's directions precisely. It wasn't too difficult a topic to find, and when the girl read it over she realized how lucky she was to have found it at all. Within a few hours, she was sure, it would be deleted (we have a right to free speech, no matter what you may think, CC Corp!).

It contained three key words alongside one of the symbols that had become familiar during the teenager's time playing the game as well as a bit of interesting information regarding an area that seemed to 'blink in and out like a bad television set.' It sounded just like one of the areas in which they were generally certain to find CC Corp's missing fragment files (they often post threads about having lost yet another file, it warms my heart every time I see them).

The girl exited the board and re-entered her e-mail to send a quick message to the boy who had led her to that newest find before entering her favorite city, the one that lay upon the sea in an attempt to mirror the famed Venice that rose above the sea in Italy: Mac Anu. As soon as the ghost-like Twin Blade had gated into the city, she searched through her list of contacts to see who was on to travel to this mysterious, infected area. No one was on, what convenient timing (I was doing chores for my mother, so it wasn't my fault, I swear!).

But judging by the e-mail she was just receiving, it was clear that Shugo and Rena were on, and by looking through her list of contacts, it was also clear that Balmung was on. At least those were three that the girl knew she could count on to help her on her personal quest (or two, since one never knew exactly what Balmung was doing when he was online and almost always 'quite busy.') The teenager instantly sent messages to the three of them before making her way to their favorite meeting spot: the little café overlooking city's dirt-stained river.

The Twin Blade stepped into the café, a small bell ringing loudly (despite its lack of size) through the room. She was expecting to have been able to order something—tea perhaps?—and was surprised to see the twins (and Balmung) sitting at their usual table (no one dared take the table of the Neo-Dot-Hackers, just in case they decided to come in for a visit).

They obviously had been deep in conversation since they didn't notice the girl's entrance until she pulled up a chair (dragging it across the ground to make it as loud as possible, sneaky little girl) and sat down to lean her elbows against the table (actually, they still didn't notice, she had to cough a few times to get their attention…and I thought I was oblivious). "Erika!" Shugo greeted her with a wide smile while Rena jumped in surprise and Balmung crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair, a concerned look on his face (or was it a thoughtful look? I was never very good at telling the difference).

"Hey," the other Twin Blade greeted them, finally. "I saw that thread on the board earlier…"

The others exchanged significant looks before Rena answered, "It's already gone."

"What?"

"I went back to look a little while ago, it's already been deleted," Balmung answered mysteriously. How could that be? She had looked at it only moments before. As if he had read her thoughts (which somehow wouldn't surprise me; that guy's a little creepy), the winged Blade Master continued, "It's almost as if they were waiting for you to see it before deleting it. Sky…" the word hung in the air (no pun intended) as their surroundings became thicker, heavier.

That wouldn't have surprised the girl, to tell the truth. Not if it was that strange girl that had appeared in so many places in which Erika had as well. And their encounters had never been pleasant. What did that mysterious girl have against her? Was it because she looked like Aura, the AI that had disappeared years ago and that she so loathed?

The other three looked at her a moment before Shugo, uncomfortable with the silence as always, decided to speak. "So, we're going to go check it out, right?" he asked somewhat eagerly. That was the orange-clad Twin Blade for you, always eager to prove himself the hero and if it took a fight to do so, then he was eager and willing for that fight to take place.

Erika winked at the boy, "Of course," she said as she stood up and waited for the others to do so as well.

---

The four players appeared in a desert, their bodies still wrapped in gold for a moment before it disappeared and left them in the darkness of the late night, just after the moon and stars had disappeared from the sky and before the sun had yet to rise. The darkest part of the night (CC Corp seems to have a love for the dramatic, don't they?).

In the distance, hidden briefly by a sudden sand storm that died only moments after it had begun, a young girl walked slowly toward them, her violet eyes gleaming in the non-light. Her movements were slow and deliberate, though she appeared almost as though she wasn't walking at all but rather floating along the ground (which would the only way anyone would be able to be graceful in the sand, even in a game).

It was an image that Erika would know anywhere, and from the looks on the faces of her companions, it was clear that they had some knowledge of the girl's appearance as well. How? The white-haired Twin Blade had no recollection of them ever having seen the strange girl. It was Sky.

"You're trying to return?" she said, looking directly into the teenager's blue eyes as she spoke. "After all this time, you think I will allow you to return? You do not deserve this world; you tried to give it up!"

No, she hadn't tried to give it up but had only tried to see a different world. She had always known she would return. Wait, what was she thinking? She had never been here before until that first time in the game when the Neo-Dot-Hackers had mistaken her for the same person she was being mistaken for now.

The image disappeared with a gust of the wind that blew sand into the virtual eyes of the four adventurers. She was suddenly gone, had she even actually been there at all? She looked at the other two, the area seemed completely normal to her. But did it to them? It was strange, but she had noticed that somehow she experienced The World differently from anyone else (and it only took her this long to realize that, the world welcomes its newest genius).

"The area seems fine," Shugo said expertly. And he would know, right? Considering the adventures he and his friends had experienced in the past, he would know a little bit about normal areas and infected areas, right? Or, he was just being an idiot and talking about things he didn't know. That sounded about right, too.

But then Balmung nodded his agreement; that settled matters. He might be a bit strange at times (or all the time, really), but he wouldn't joke or lie about this. "Maybe," he began thoughtfully, "she knew about it?" He exchanged significant looks with the other two, and a curious look from their fourth party member, the girl with the white hair and blue eyes.

Rena spoke this time, "We heard a rumor of an infected area a while ago, maybe a few months, and decided to look into it. We found a file and have been trying to open it since, but we can't get through."

Anger, disappointment, betrayal; emotions flooded Erika's entire being and distorted her lovely features. "Why didn't you tell me? We've been looking for those," she said, referring to herself and the other group of friends that she had met during her time in 'The World.'

"We wanted to look into it," Balmung answered, "to try and figure out what it was."

"But we couldn't," Shugo announced unnecessarily (it has long since been established that Erika is the only one who can do anything with those dratted files; the only reason CC Corp wanted them was because they were afraid of the fraud that was Sky). "So, take it…"

The boy apparently rifled through his items and held something glowing in his hand. Something in her heart told the other Twin Blade that this would be the final file, the final fragment. This would give her all the answers she was seeking. The girl took the item from him and the minute it exchanged hands her mind was flooded with memories and the scene around them changed.

The file was indulging them all, allowing all present to take a look into the past.


	24. Memories of Aura

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

---

version 23.0

**Memories of Aura**

new topic posted 8.11.06

---

I'm sorry for the shortness of this update. There's a reason for this, you see, and it has nothing to do with laziness. I am not lazy. I saw that! Some of you rolled your eyes, some of you chuckled. I'm being serious, I'm not lazy…I'm just unmotivated. And I'm not a procrastinator, because I know that you're all thinking it. I plan for the fact that I'll be doing everything last minute, procrastinators do not plan.

Anyway, back to the miniscule update. Like I said, there is a non-Koto related reason for this. It's actually very Erika-related. I wasn't there, so I can't say anything about first-hand experience. Erika won't tell me much about what happened and I'm not about to ask the Neo-Dot-Hackers. They'd murder me in my sleep. No, they wouldn't, they'd just mortally wound me in my sleep.

Point being, I don't really know much of what happened. Obviously, there was something that they didn't want to share with me. Though that hurts, I think I understand. Memories are what make a person who they are, otherwise it's almost as if they didn't exist. Erika lived her entire life without memories and when she suddenly got them back, they were nothing like the kind she wanted to have.

I'd have wanted to keep them secret, too.

---

The group of four was swept away into the darkness. They lost their sense of self; they all became one being, wrapped together though they managed to still exist as separate consciousnesses. They were in a strange place, and though they were looking up at the sky, they somehow knew the appearance of their surroundings.

A few feet below them lay a bed draped in white with large golden bedposts that glimmered in the colored light the group was radiating. Stuffed animals floated through the air and a young boy, a Wave Master, sat hugging his knees to his chest and burying his head in them. He was right beside them, but they couldn't say anything. Erika wanted to cry out to him, to wake up and do something but she could not move. The boy looked up and said something, but it sounded like a blur to them.

The only thing the four players heard was Balmung's somewhat breathless comment: "Tsukasa." Before the others had the time to ask anything more, the scene faded out of focus and another one took its place.

---

Now, they were gliding along the ground, running from something. Everything depended on getting away from that something. Erika cried out, she was the only one, but no one heard her but the three other characters around her. Balmung's eyes widened when they caught sight of the two players watching in the distance: a twin blade that looked exactly like Shugo and a large Heavy Blade.

Whatever it was that had been chasing them caught up and Erika felt the life drain out of her. The others stared, they felt nothing as the white-haired girl screamed silently, apparently also unheard by the other spectators. "Orca and Kite?" the winged Blade Master asked, reaching out a hand and taking a step toward the by-standers. Before he could reach them, this scene faded as well.

---

The group was once again in a different scene, this time they were surrounded by the familiar darkness that had at least once enveloped everyone in the game. They swam through the darkness toward a single figure, falling down into the nothingness: it was a Twin Blade clad in orange that accentuated teal hair.

They neared and Erika bent over him to kiss him lightly, her hands were wrapped around his wrist and as she moved away to see if he would awaken, a golden bracelet appeared on his arm. "Shugo! Isn't this—?" Rena started.

The Shugo in front of them slowly opened his eyes and just as he did so, the world around them faded away again.


	25. Greeted by the Sky

.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

---

version 24.0

**Greeted by the Sky**

new topic posted 10.3.06

---

We're almost done; are you sad to see us go? I know you're sad that I'm leaving, that's common sense, but what about the others? Never mind, they don't need to know, they aren't that important anyway.

---

Erika looked at the notes she had written on her hand; it was a good thing there was no school that day. Not that it really would have mattered; she would have allowed her mind to wander anyway. After all, what did it matter now, compared to what she was learning in 'The World'? Normally, that would be an odd statement, but this particular teenager's situation was far from normal.

The girl took a deep sigh and tapped the loose bun at the back of her head which attempted (and failed miserably) to keep her long, dark hair out of her face. Maybe she should let it down, she could use it to distract herself when things became too difficult. But for some unknown reason (I, personally, would have wanted the distraction, then again I always like to have some form of entertainment when my mother is trying to talk to me), she decided to leave it up. "Mom?" she called from the upper floor as she slowly walked down the stairs, craning her neck as if it would allow her to see around the corner at the bottom (though she wasn't even half-way down yet).

"What is it, Erika?" her mother shouted back, still not aware that at this point her daughter was finally able to succeed in peering around the corner before she entered the kitchen. The woman was sitting at the kitchen table reading a book with a pair of glasses slipping onto her nose (she always seems to be reading like that, one wonders whether she ever actually does housework or not and how said work gets done, I think it's Erika's father who does it all).

The teenager squirmed as she neared her mother's throne (eh…seat) and glanced once more at the notes in her hand. You see, she had a slight difficulty: she didn't know anyone who had been through her current situation and who could help her get through this dilemma (I mean, come on, how many people have to tell their parents that they're really computer programs that were created to defy and yet at the same time rule over other computer programs?). "I have something to tell you…"

That seemed like a sound way to begin. "How much will it cost me?"

Ah, ever the response of cheap, but wise, parents. "Nothing," the daughter continued uncomfortably. "I just have something really important that I need to tell you. You see—"

With perfect timing, as usual, the telephone rang and the mother motioned for her daughter to answer so that she may continue reading her book (she needed to find out who the murderer was, after all, and that was much more important than any call in her opinion). "Hello?" Erika asked dully while she was placing the receiver delicately against her ear. She was in no mood to deal with telemarketers, who were undoubtedly her timely callers.

"Erika!" someone shouted so loudly through the phone that the girl's mother instantly snapped her dark eyes onto the scene before slowly lowering them once again toward the words of her book.

The teenager would know that voice anywhere: Koto (I thought I had perfect timing with that one, Erika didn't need to go through the hassle of telling her parents anything while I ended up being the one to do all the work!). "Koto? What's going on?" Obviously, something was very wrong.

It wasn't as if Koto didn't call often, because none could deny that she certainly did. Instead, it was a matter of: she had called so often that the other girl could easily calculate her mood simply from the way she screamed the name. "I have a major new lead, I think you'll be interested…"

Interested? Normally, the other girl would be completely right. But that seemed not to be the case right now. At this point in time, Erika was only interested in telling the people who had become her family over the years what it was she had learned about her past, and preparing them for the inevitable moment when they would soon never meet again. But maybe this was a good thing: the teenager would not have to deal with the difficulties of good-bye. Although the girl had no idea when this goodbye would come, she knew it must come at some point.

She'd just put it off until she got back. Painful goodbyes could always wait.

"Alright," the dark-haired girl said with a resigned sigh. The teenager hung up the phone and stared at it for a few moments longer before she made her way to her computer, falling backwards onto the rolling chair (which is never a good idea because it tends to move around; trust me, I would know) and placing the headpiece gently over her…well, her head.

---

The white-clad Twin Blade opened her eyes to 'The World' and jumped back in surprise when she saw a pair of large brown eyes only a few inches (if that) in front of her face. "Koto!" she shouted reproachfully after having landed none-too-gracefully on the ground, her backside now thoroughly sore. "It's times like these that I wonder if you've ever heard the term, 'personal space'."

"I've heard of it," the brunette replied with a shrug. Her friend was slowly picking herself off the ground and brushing the dust off her pure white clothes while Koto watched with a hint of a smile in the slight curve of her lips and her arms crossed gently over her chest. She hadn't even given a thought to helping the other girl up. "But just because I've heard of something doesn't mean I have any regard for it."

There was no point in continuing the subject; there was just no arguing with the girl (you'd think Erika would have learned that by then, though). "I was in the middle of something important, so whatever this is had better be even more important than that otherwise I'm wasting my time." What was with the attitude? It was very un-Erika-like. The girl closed her blue eyes and took a few slow, deep breaths to regain the composure she couldn't even recall having lost at all. "What's this lead you mentioned?"

Koto had looked hurt for the moment or two before the other teenager had calmed down. "You're in about as bad a mood as when you come back from one of your hospital trips," had anyone else mentioned it, Erika would have been mad. But it wasn't anyone else, and despite the girl's almost constant lies, she was always honest when it came to judging another person's mood.

Insensitive though she was (I resent that…even though I _am_ the one who wrote it), she was oddly sensitive to that sort of thing.

"Trust me, it's big. We just have to wait for everyone else to come on…" the girl said slowly. Everyone else? It was a well-known fact that Koto was not on very good terms with any of the other friends Erika had made online. What was this all of a sudden? And aside from that, who was it that the Heavy Blade had forced herself to invite? Death? Obviously not. Amaya? Another definite no. Claire was a possibility, until Erika remembered what it was the Blade Master did in the past as a profession in 'The World.'

If Koto was calling the others, then things were certainly very strange indeed. Within the half-hour, Amaya, Claire, Death, Koto, and Erika stood on the main bridge in the center of Mac Anu. They filled up most of the bridge, but that didn't really matter at the moment. Instead, the group was still getting over the stunned fascination at having all been called together by the usually cynical and anti-social Heavy Blade. "So, you're ego alone isn't enough to defeat any obstacles you may come across?"

As always, Death was the first to place his insults (no, wait…I think I'm usually the first, I think it just makes me sound better if he's the one to start it). "My ego's a lot more helpful than your paltry tricks. I don't have to resort to PKing to make myself feel better."

"And I don't need to resort to hacking to make myself a stronger player. I have strength behind my words," Death shot back.

"I, personally, always thought that brains were better than brawn."

"Did you hit your head on something?" the boy asked concernedly. "I sincerely hope you aren't referring to yourself."

Claire stepped between the two, her arms outspread to keep them apart. "Though I have to say I agree with Death, there must be something slightly more important than your arguments." As always, the Blade Master was down to the point and down to business.

---

"Would it have killed you to warn us before gating us someplace?" Amaya shouted and slammed the butt of her staff into the ground. The girl looked down and her chocolate brown eyes widened in surprise. She wasn't standing on a ground, at least it didn't look like any sort of ground she had seen before. Instead, it was as if the group was standing on a great, black expanse that extended towards infinity in all directions.

Koto, however, was skilled at ignoring her surroundings and was therefore unfazed by the fact that she was standing solidly on nothing. "Yes, I think it really would have killed me. I could feel my heart stopping from just thinking about giving you a warning."

The others smiled; they had become wise enough to stay out of the arguments between the Heavy Blade and the Wave Master. They didn't get along and all present had the feeling that there was no force in any world that could change that fact. There was no point in even trying.

"You have something else you might want to worry about instead…" the darkness shattered to reveal the Net Slums and two figures at the other end of the strangely empty street: a young man who stood with his arms confidently behind his back and a black suit that had somehow remained free of dust and a young girl who hovered a few inches above the now-visible ground.

They had entered a strange world and Sky had come to greet them.


	26. Finale

.hack//FRAGMENT

Saya

* * *

version 25.0

**Finale**

new topic posted 10.17.06

* * *

This is the last segment in our not-so-little tale. You'll miss me, right? I'm almost sad to see this project come to an end, but I knew from the beginning that it would have to eventually.

* * *

Erika and Koto immediately recognized the man (everyone recognized the girl so there's no point in mentioning that revelation). "You're the dude who programmed Sky!" the Heavy Blade pointed an accusing finger at the figure wearing the suit with said little girl floating a few inches above the ground beside him.

Not that the accusing finger did anything really, except maybe make the man smirk. What was with that confident attitude? It was grating on everyone's nerves (and that's sad, because it's usually just me who gets annoyed). "Brilliant deduction, my dear. And what do you plan on doing about it?"

"We aren't here for you," Claire cut in before the impulsive brunette could say anything more. She would have undoubtedly made the situation worse.

"Brave and very clichéd words," the man said, his arms still crossed over his chest with that annoying smirk on his lips. The blonde balled her hands into fists and bit at the corners of her mouth to stop herself from saying anything. If there was one thing you did not do, it was say that anything the Blade Master did was clichéd.

They may not have originally been there because of the man, or even because of Sky now that they thought about it, but he had just put himself at the top of Claire's "must die" list.

Wait a minute, why were they there? The area didn't look infected in the least. With a satanic smile on her lips, the girl flaunted her power in an attempt to instill fear in the chess pieces in front of her. "You still haven't figured it out yet? I made sure you believed that these 'Net Slums' were infected so that you would come. We," she looked at the man beside her, "thought that now would be the perfect time to stop Aura. She has been roaming free for too long."

Her violet eyes held fast onto Erika's sky blue ones. The Twin Blade would not back down and stared back. And it was the ethereal AI who broke contact first when she saw something fly toward the floating figure: it was a spell Amaya had aimed. She winced and flew backwards a few centimeters after the impact before her eyes widened in surprise, just like the eyes of the man beside her. "How did you do that?" she asked angrily.

And then continued, "How did you hit me? You are not supposed to be able to hit me! I am the ultimate being in 'The World,' you cannot touch a divinity!"

"No weapons should be able to touch Sky…" the man said.

But these weren't ordinary weapons (just a wild guess, you know). "Didn't we find these with Aura's fragments?" Koto asked, staring curiously at her own large blade as she held it easily in front of her face with one hand.

As usual, at the sound of the name, Sky's glare snapped to the speaker (me, in this case). "Of course, even after she had disappeared from this place she left traces of herself," the glare moved once again onto the white-clad Twin Blade. "She cannot help but meddle…"

A nice little gift left by their benefactor, who also happened to be standing in their little group (thank you, you have my eternal gratitude, my dear…and no, that isn't sarcasm, and I am not crossing my fingers behind my back, that would make typing extremely difficult). "I call what you're doing meddling, Sky," Erika said, stepping forward and lifting her chin (not out of confidence, but because the other girl was still floating). The Twin Blade went to attack, but was knocked over onto the ground.

"Aura abandoned this world, she doesn't deserve it!"

"Now what? Now that she knows we can hit her, we can't hit her!" Koto yelled, lifting her hands up in annoyance (did that comment make any sense?).

Claire examined their group and mumbled to herself. "You guys help Erika against Sky, I'll take the suit…" she said with satisfied smile. Revenge would be sweet; he'd regret having said she was clichéd.

The others watched for a moment as she sprinted forward and slashed her sword down, trailing darkness as she did so, and her blade was reflected off of thin air. A smug smile remained on the man's face, though it disappeared a moment later when a cut appeared on his cheek (talk about your delayed reaction, and I thought I could get bad).

All things considered, had the strike actually made impact the damage would have been a lot greater. "You can hit me, too?" he asked with a stunned look on his face while his one hand covered the lightly bleeding wound (clearly, since you're bleeding!).

Claire did not answer as she launched forward again, this time as she struck a bolt of lightning struck the man as well. The blonde looked reproachfully back at the others and her blue eyes fell upon her old friend, the Wave Master. "You can't fight him alone, and I think the others have enough help that they won't be needing me…" Amaya declared before sending a ball of flame in the man's direction.

Erika, Koto, and Death decided to turn their attention to their most immediate problem: what to do about Sky. The white-haired girl stood back as her two friends tried to attack the floating girl time and again to no avail. She leapt out of the way just in time to avoid their attacks every time, laughing all the while.

Enough was enough, right? Erika couldn't let her friends get defeated by an AI that wasn't fighting back, right? But what if she actually did defeat Sky? What would happen to her then, now that she knew what, or rather who, she truly was?

"A little help here, Erika!" the Heavy Blade yelled as she picked herself off the ground after having been thrown a few feet from where she was only moments before. They couldn't so much as land a hit, despite the fact that they were two of the best in the group (I'm not being conceited, I'm just telling the truth).

The girl shook her pale head and nodded decisively; it was clear that she decided to take her chances with the here and now rather than the future. She nodded to her two friends who jumped forward, ready to attack Sky at the same time. Of course, she dodged at the last instant, but she jumped backwards just as Erika had appeared there with her arms outstretched to embrace the other girl.

The two of them floated into the sky, even Claire and Amaya stopped fighting with the man wearing the suit to watch as the two girls were surrounded in a silver light. "You're the last piece to my puzzle, Sky. You are a part of me, and it is time we finally came together again," the white-haired Twin Blade whispered, though somehow her voice carried to all the others.

"No!" the suited man cried and tried to reach out to the girls but was stopped by Claire and Amaya. When Erika reemerged from the light, Sky was nowhere to be found. "Where is she? What did you do to her?"

Erika floated a few centimeters above the ground so that her long white skirt was now just brushing the dirty streets of the Net Slum city. "She's where she belongs, where she should be. Thank you for taking care of her for so long." She looked at her friends with a confused expression on her face, one that was very obviously Erika.

"What do we call you now?" Koto asked.

The girl shrugged, "Aura, I guess. Erika's alright, too, if it's easier; I like the name."

"So now what?" Claire asked from where she was still pinning the man's arms to his sides. "What happens next?"

"Nothing, I guess. 'The World' will start repairing itself and eventually become normal again. But that's it; I can't go back to the other world."

"Then is this goodbye?" Death asked, his voice as cool as ever, though there was the faintest flicker in his eyes. The only thing that might suggest there was something bothering his calm demeanor.

The girl shrugged again, typical Erika. "Nope, I'm still here, you guys can always visit me," she added with a wink before the group was engulfed in a golden light. She was taking them someplace far away while she worked on repairing the world that was hers.

_Goodbye_


	27. Message from CC CORP

We at CC Corp apologize for this inconvenience and are aware of the length of time until we noticed that this thread existed.

The story you see in this topic never happened. These children did not exist. This tale is one that came from a fantastical imagination and as it was not run by us first we have deemed it illegal.

To those of you who have read this document, forget it ever existed. In the eyes of CC Corporation, it is a creative tale and nothing more. These events never occurred. Aura never disappeared and it is now the job of CC Corporation to dispel those ugly rumors.

We will be deleting this topic as soon as we are capable. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

CC Corporation


End file.
